History Matters: A List of Books Worth Reading

The best way to understand the present and future is to study the past. That’s why we read history. Grit your teeth and dig in. You won’t be disappointed.

White River Crossing by Ian McGuire (Crown 2025)

This is a compelling book set in 1766 about a treasure hunt for a trove of gold ore. It begins in the Canadian sub-Arctic at a Hudson Bay North Atlantic trading post. Mayhem is foretold as the post administrator organizes the expedition in secret to keep the spoils for himself. He delegates his untrustworthy lieutenant to lead, accompanied by a sailor who does not understand the environment and several local Dene Native Americans who understand everything.

I enjoyed this fresh look into colonial North America. Some reviewers disparaged the offhand treatment of Native American culture, so it’s not perfect. But it’s a good historical novel.

The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy by Josh Ireland (Dutton, 2026)

It’s questionable that Trotsky was Stalin’s “greatest” enemy. Both Lenin and Trotsky had the polish that Stalin, a mobster from Georgia, lacked. But Lenin had a severe stroke and faded from the scene while Trotsky continued to speak, write, and recruit followers for his brand of international communism. Stalin expelled him from Russia. Trotsky and his devoted wife, Natalia, moved among an ever-smaller number of countries willing to grant asylum, until their only option was communist-governed Mexico.

Ireland brings us up to speed on the amazing amount of hocus-pocus conspiracy plots, assassins, turncoats, and cowards that characterized Russia in the 30s. But he concentrates on the last year of Trotsky’s life and the plots, one at last successful, that focused on his assassination. I enjoyed this book; it reads quickly. It brings in the Trotskys’ relationship with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and the artistic community in the U.S. and Mexico that strongly supported the communist government in Mexico. The failed plots are stories in themselves. Recommended if you like to read history.

Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August by Oliver Helmes (Oliver Press, 2016)

Mildly interesting day-by-day of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The author emphasizes the hidden horror for the Jews throughout Germany, while in Berlin everything is precision, beauty, and style. Not surprisingly, Germany took the most Olympic medals, followed by the USA.

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in the Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill (Farrar 2025)

The 2026 Pulitzer Prize winner in biography – make this your fall/winter book. It’s readable, fast-paced, and filled with sex and violence – American history at its best. (And you will look more intellectual reading this book rather than The Ten Year Affair.) This is the story of Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, Dutch royalty from the Hudson Valley, living at the explosive turn of the 19th century. All the characters and the family’s intimate friends are names we know from U.S. Revolutionary History: the Washington family, Adams family, the Jeffersons, Lafayette, and Alexander Hamilton, husband of Elizabeth.

Dive into 600 pages. Relish the small type. Reward yourself emotionally and intellectually with a wonderful true story.

Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer (Simon & Schuster, 2021, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history)

Likely, I saw an informed source reference this book as a “readable” history – informative to U.S. history enthusiasts, and it is. Despite the minuscule type font, it’s an engrossing story about a country very much dependent on the U.S. This anguishes Cuban citizens who mostly despise our country for continual interference in their economic and political affairs. How could the U.S. resist? Cuba was soft, and easy for exploitation, open to corruption from all takers, especially in the years after the Spanish-American War in 1898.

During the height of the slave trade (1750–1860) Cuba was viewed by the U.S. southern politicians as an opportunity to create three new slave states to bolster southern strength in Congress. This did not happen, but it easily could have, as many of the largest sugar estates were owned by U.S. plantation owners.

Following years of corrupt governments, Fidel Castro entered the picture. He manipulated the Cold War to his favor by pitting the USSR against the U.S., 90 miles from its southern border. But Castro’s pledge to socialism became a dictatorship at the expense of Cuban citizens. However, many who remain still appear repulsed by the U.S. As their country devolves into penury, the next few years will be critical in Cuba’s evolution. The role of Cuban exiles, now citizens of the U.S., is still to be determined. Recommended reading for lovers of history.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Are you a history buff? Do you like reading about past events and how they affect future generation? What is your favorite historical book?