Best of History & Biography of 2024
At least, my favorite history & biography reads in 2024
Hey everyone,
Oooh, I love an annual roudup, don’t you? A chance to look back on the best and brightest of the year, a way to reflect on where we’ve been.
Where I’ve been is reading. I read 100 books this year (if I can finish this last one today), and a lot of them were history and biography. So I thought I’d share them!
Now these are my favorites of what I’ve read in 2024. A lot of them didn’t come out this year. So hopefully this is resurface some old favorites for you.
Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb by Iris Jamahl Dunkle
I wrote a full review of my experience reading this book in October, but this book has really stuck with me. The imagery that
colors the book with is outstanding, and Sanora Babb’s life was so fascinating. This one had me reading like the wind, if you’ll pardon a pun I’m sure 10,000 other reviewers made.
Owain Glyndŵr: A Casebook by Michael Livingston (Editor)
I’m used to biographies with a more strict narrative structure, so I was pleasantly surprised by this book, which confronts the reality and myth of Owain Glyndŵr by examining the actual documents we have left of him. It looks at records, poems, and chronicles relating to Glyndŵr’s career and his legacy with editorial notes that situate everything in their context. It’s a fascinating look at this revolutionary, and one I leaned on heavily in my episode about Glyndŵr earlier this year.
The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak
I was so impacted by Shelley Puhak’s book that I actually wrote about it for one of my PhD application essays. It is exactly the kind of history I love—she resurects the story of two sisters in law who were powerful in their time but smeared by their enemies and by history. Even though they live on in our collective consciousness—especially Brunnhild, who inspired operas and the phrase “It’s not over until the fat lady sings”—their real story has been largely forgotten. It’s a fantastic book and very worth reading.
Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great by Rachel Kousser
I wrote about this book for the LA Times so I won’t go too deep into detail here. Suffice to say that it’s a fascinating re-examination of the last few years of Alexander the Great’s life, a period traditional historians have often termed “his decline.” Much like The Dark Queens, Kousser’s book reclaims the negative smear campaign that has damaged his reputation and redeems him from some “scandals” of history.
The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism by Joanne Parker (Editor) and Corinna Wagner (Editor)
This book is perhaps a little in the weeds for anyone who is not super interested in specific cultural movements of Victorian England, but I loved it. Collecting essays from some of the top experts on the Victorian obsessed with the Medieval Era, this book examines the impact of 19th-century nostalgia at all levels of British society. It’s quite a tome, but if this is your jam it is so worth the investment.
Unruly Figures: Twenty Tales of Rebels, Rulebreakers, and Revolutionaries You've (Probably) Never Heard Of by Valorie Castellanos Clark
Okay, okay, I know this is my book. But I loved writing it! And I’ve loved reading it at events around the US this year! I collected twenty tales of lesser known rebels—and well-known people whose rebellions are often hidden in traditional biographies. Obviously I’m biased, but it is definitely my favorite new release of 2024.
The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in History and Theory by Anna Green and Kathleen Troup
And finally, for anyone who is interested in getting into more academic history, whether in preparation for school or just for their own learning, The Houses of History is an excellent prep book to understand how history is written. It examines the different schools of history, their influences, their major writers, their strengths and critiques, and how readers can understand them. If you’ve ever wondered how/why there are different versions of ostensibly true events, you’ll find the answers in here.
And that’s a wrap on 2024 (for me)! I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and I’ll be back soon!