From the Vikings to the CIA, here are the best history books of 2024

Published in two volumes, Peter Parker’s collage of homosexual life in London from 1945 to 1967 is a monumental achievement, bringing together diaries, memoirs, police records and newspaper editorials to present an irresistibly immersive history of gay men’s lives in the shadows. No brief description can capture the richness and variety of this fabulous project — not least its glorious cast, which ranges from John Gielgud and Noël Coward to Jeremy Thorpe and Kenneth Williams. Brilliantly compiled and wryly edited, it’s often a darkly funny book, infused with all the joy, tragedy, strangeness and frailty of human life. I loved it.
Penguin Classics £30 each
Buy a copy of Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-1959 and Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1960-1967 here

The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was notable for his charm, good looks and impossibly long legs, all of which endeared him to James I. To their Jacobean contemporaries their relationship was a scandal, but Lucy Hughes-Hallett sketches it with rare insight and genuine sympathy. Dazzlingly unconventional, her biography immerses you in the rituals of the Stuart court, but she never loses sight of the personal tragedy at its heart. This is a stunningly good book, and should be a contender for every prize going.
4th Estate £30
Buy a copy of The Scapegoat here

The Barn: The Murder of Emmett Till and the Cradle of American Racism by Wright Thompson

One day in August 1955 a cheeky black teenager called Emmett Till whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi grocery store. A few days later a group of white men kidnapped him, took him to a barn, tortured and killed him. He was just 14 years old. When an all-white jury found his killers not guilty of murder, the story became an international scandal, and in this riveting investigation Wright Thompson uses it to frame a devastating history of racism in the American South.
Hutchinson Heinemann £25
Buy a copy of The Barn: The Murder of Emmett Till and the Cradle of American Racism here

Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era by Alwyn Turner

For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos. The scope is vast, covering everything from the suffragettes to The Wind in the Willows, and Alwyn Turner proves a wonderfully enthusiastic narrator. I can’t think of another historian who, on introducing the cavalier figure of Edward VII, would remember to tell us that he owned a golf bag made from an elephant’s penis.
Profile £25
Buy a copy of Little Englanders here

Augustus the Strong: A Study in Artistic Greatness and Political Fiasco by Tim Blanning

As both king of Poland and elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong should have been one of the powerbrokers of his age. Instead he spent his time collecting porcelain, amassing mistresses and tossing hundreds of foxes to their deaths. That was bad news for the people of Poland, but excellent news for Tim Blanning, who uses Augustus’s chaotic life to explore the richly entertaining landscape of central European politics and culture in the early 18th century.
Allen Lane £30
Buy a copy of Augustus the Strong here

Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief by Ronald Hutton

The first volume of Ronald Hutton’s biography of Cromwell was a masterpiece. The second, focusing on the crucial years of the late 1640s and early 1650s, is too. Hutton is a wise and thoughtful guide through the thickets of the civil war, equally comfortable in the corridors of power and the tumult of a cavalry charge. But the real star is Cromwell: an irresistibly compelling protagonist, at once impulsive and calculating, earnest and cunning.
Yale £25
Buy a copy of Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief here

Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War by Jonathan Dimbleby

Many books about the world wars are depressingly inelegant, but Jonathan Dimbleby’s works are in a different league. This titanic account of the Eastern Front in 1944 covers an enormous canvas from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but it’s the human details that linger in the mind, from the panic of German soldiers driven backwards through the snow to the doomed heroism of Warsaw’s resistance fighters. Despite the harrowing subject matter, Dimbleby handles his material with such skill and wisdom that his book is a pleasure to read.
Viking £25
Buy a copy of Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War here

Spice: The 16th-Century Contest That Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley

If you enjoy tales of pirates, exploration and blood-curdling mayhem, then Roger Crowley’s swashbuckling account of the 16th-century race between Spain and Portugal for the Spice Islands of east Asia is the book for you. On the upside, his protagonists brought back impressive quantities of cloves, silver and porcelain. On the downside, an alarming number seem to have ended their lives without their private parts. This is that sort of book.
Yale £20
Buy a copy of Spice here

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough

A history of the Vikings unlike any other, this is a scholarly delight, every page of which glitters with insight. Eleanor Barraclough surveys the great sweep of life in the northern world between the 8th and 11th centuries, poring over everyday artefacts from religious pendants and carved rune sticks to graffiti, board games and children’s toys. And although she’s terrific on the details of riddles and hair-combs, she’s even better on the sheer strangeness and unknowability of the distant past.
Profile £25
Buy a copy of Embers of the Hands here

The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor

One of our finest historians, Helen Castor has produced a wonderful narrative history of England in the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, rich in medieval colour and human detail. It’s also a riveting study of raw power: how to win it, wield it and lose it. And although she does her best to be even-handed, you can’t help sympathising with tough, ruthless Henry, who knew how politics worked, rather than preening, narcissistic Richard, who didn’t — and paid the price.
Allen Lane £35
Buy a copy of The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV here

The Eastern Front: A History of the First World War by Nick Lloyd

This is the First World War from an unfamiliar angle — Austrian, German and Russian armies blundering across a vast landscape of marshes and grasslands, the front lines ebbing and flowing with dizzying speed. Nick Lloyd gives us an extraordinary saga of chaos and horror, moving from the peaks of Slovenia to the forests of east Prussia. “We are no longer men,” one Italian soldier writes, “we are one with the earth.” A brilliant book.
Viking £30
Buy a copy of The Eastern Front here

Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade 1649-1660 by Alice Hunt

Publishers have finally woken up to the potential of the civil wars, and this is an enthralling narrative of the rise and fall of Britain’s republican experiment. Alice Hunt is an admirably deft guide to the turbulence of the 1650s, capturing the fizzing cultural dynamism of a period that’s often dismissed as dour and complicated. Above all, she gives her story a tangible sense of uncertainty: nothing is inevitable, and you can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Faber £25
Buy a copy of Republic here

Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans

Why did the Nazis do it? In this thoughtful and elegantly written book, Richard Evans looks for answers in the lives of two dozen individuals, from the inevitable Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels to ordinary SS men and concentration camp guards. He is superb at capturing biographical nuances, such as the sporting and artistic tastes of the men at Hitler’s court. Above all, he invites us to reflect on what really made them tick, from their conservative political prejudices to the traumatic experience of war, revolution and depression.
Allen Lane £35
Buy a copy of Hitler’s People here

The CIA: An Imperial History by Hugh Wilford

Were the CIA the true heirs to the British Empire? It’s a nicely provocative argument, and one that Hugh Wilford develops with impressive enthusiasm. Drawing on declassified papers, he shows how CIA agents in the 1950s and 1960s were steeped in the culture of British imperialism, exemplified by their obsession with Rudyard Kipling. It was Kipling, Wilford argues, who gave the CIA its original ethos: a “love of romantic overseas adventure, combined with a whiff of imperial paranoia”.
Basic £25
Buy a copy of The CIA: An Imperial History here

Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany by Harald Jähner, translated by Shaun Whiteside

We commonly remember the Weimar Republic for its terrible fate, but Harald Jähner recreates the doomed world of 1920s Germany in dazzling detail, from art deco furnishings to weird new dance cults and from gun-toting reactionaries to gender-fluid sexual athletes. He offers a clear narrative of the Nazis’ path to power, but what’s really impressive is his eye for everyday life before the fall — the cafés and dance halls, the beach holidays and Bauhaus buildings.
WH Allen £25
Buy a copy of Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany here

Paris ’44: The Shame and the Glory by Patrick Bishop

The story of Paris in the Second World War has been told many times, but rarely with such narrative drive and anecdotal flourish. Patrick Bishop moves adroitly through the story of the occupation, sketching fascist collaborators, plucky resistance fighters and the ordinary men and women who were neither. His book reaches its climax with de Gaulle marching down the Champs Elysées, but he also spares a thought for the losers of liberation — the women beaten and humiliated for collaborating with the enemy.
Viking £25
Buy a copy of Paris ’44: The Shame and the Glory here

The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain, 1815-1945, by NAM Rodger

Nobody who loves stories of the high seas will want to miss this final volume in NAM Rodger’s titanic trilogy, which takes his naval history of Britain from the Napoleonic Wars to victory over the Axis in 1945. As in previous volumes, he writes about battles and commanders with great insight, but his book really comes alive below decks: the engineers, the equipment, the vast quantities of alcohol. It’s a formidably impressive scholarly achievement.
Allen Lane £40
Buy a copy of Price of Victory here

Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones

Does Henry V really deserve his glittering reputation? Yes, says Dan Jones in this gloriously vivid account. He casts the hero of Agincourt as not just a superb soldier, but the ideal medieval king: pious, earnest and hard-working, but brutally ruthless when it really mattered. This is a book that immerses you in the mud of battle, with page after page splattered with the blood of butchered Frenchmen — but Jones doesn’t mind a bit. “Our values are not his,” he says bluntly. “His are not ours.”
Head of Zeus £25
Buy a copy of Henry V here

The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple

For many readers, Indian history before the arrival of the British is a complete mystery. But here William Dalrymple argues that south Asia’s trade network, which extended as far the Roman Empire in the west and Japan in the east, was much more important than the Silk Roads to China. Taking in Buddhism, Hindu scripture, algebra and chess, he reconfigures our sense of the ancient and medieval world, with India at its very centre. A terrific story, told with tremendous brio.
Bloomsbury £30
Buy a copy of The Golden Road here

The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama by Ben Macintyre

Easily the most gripping non-fiction thriller of the year, Ben Macintyre’s account of the SAS raid on the occupied Iranian embassy in London in 1980 is made for Hollywood. He is excellent at exploring the feelings of the hostages inside the embassy, and his explosive denouement packs a tremendous punch. The real hero is PC Trevor Lock, who kept his revolver hidden throughout the six-day siege before springing into action, unforgettably, at the crucial moment.
Viking £25
Buy a copy of The Siege here

Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar by Max Hastings

This is the story of one of the most audacious commando raids of the Second World War, in which the men of 2 Para landed on the French coast to knock out the German radar installation at Bruneval. But it’s also a memorable picture of fighting men pushing themselves to the limit — and for once, there’s a relatively happy ending. Max Hastings tells the story with his characteristic acumen and flair, and his many fans will love it.
William Collins £25
Buy a copy of Operation Biting here

Explore more of The Times and Sunday Times best books of 2024 with our complete guide. Then see who’s topping The Sunday Times Bestsellers List — the UK’s definitive sales chart

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