The Best New History Books of May

Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, by Bret Baier
Baier, chief political anchor at Fox News, examines the role Ronald Reagan played in ending the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and concludes the 40th president was a more subtle politician and statesman than many suppose. Focusing on Reagan’s historic but largely-overlooked visit to Moscow in 1988—where he gave a speech at Moscow State University signaling his desire to see Russia and the rest of the U.S.S.R. pursue true democratic government—Baier argues he was the driving force that lead to the fall of the Iron Curtain and Russia’s eventual pivot towards democracy. Using the titular “three days” as a framing device, Baier recounts the tense summits and closed-door meetings between Reagan and Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and makes a case for a direct link between this largely forgotten forgotten speech and the fall of the Berlin Wall a year later.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”, by Zora Neale Hurston
This remarkable book was written by Hurston long before her classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, dating back to a trip she took to Alabama in 1927 in her professional capacity as an anthropologist. There, she met an 86-year old man named Cudjo Lewis—also known as Kossola, the last surviving slave on the last slave ship to make the Middle Passage. Hurston interviewed Kossola extensively, and because he was already 19 when he was sold into slavery, his recollections are sharp and detailed. While Hurston acknowledges in the manuscript that she made no attempt to make it into a rigorous historical document, Kossola’s story is a terrifying glimpse into what slavery—and subsequently the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the racially-charged South of the 20th century—was actually like. It’s amazing to think this book has never before been published.

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, by Jon Meacham
Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, makes a sober argument that while we might find ourselves alarmed and confused at the current state of politics and discourse in this country, we’re certainly not the first to feel this way. Examining various moments in American history, Meacham makes the compelling argument that while America has often plunged into demagoguery and nativism, it has also almost always eventually followed what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” and sought progress over darkness. There’s a power in knowing that we’ve been here before, and understanding how we found our way back out.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
Harari is no stranger to ambitious works of sweeping historical context, and this is no exception. He tackles the story of how Homo sapiens—that is, us—came to be not just the dominant species on the planet, but the sole human species left standing. Harari argues that three distinct moments of revolution made us masters of the planet: a cognitive revolution that gave us a mental advantage over other human species; an agricultural revolution that allowed us to form permanent settlements and complex societies; and most recently, a technological revolution that allowed us to truly master the world, its resources, and all the other creatures that populate it. Harari thoughtfully weaves in the disturbing question of whether our ascendancy and mastery has actually made us happier—and offers plenty of thoughtful evidence that the answer is no.

The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies, by Michael V. Hayden
Hayden, former Director of the NSA and the CIA, examines the current climate of “alternative facts” and the potential threats of a government that seems hostile to expertise and data. The United States has one of the most effective and powerful intelligence communities in the world, capable of supplying the president with the best and most accurate information possible in order to help him make the most terrible decisions imaginable. Hayden examines the consequences of a culture in which a president prefers to fire off social media missives containing untruths and exaggerations, and in which the intelligence community is under direct attack from within. Hayden offers his vision of the many dangers this current scenario opens us to, from the crumbling of the world order, to a decline in the standing and influence of the United States even as countries like China step forward.

Trump / Russia: A Definitive History, by Seth Hettena
Every day brings more headlines containing the words “Russia” and “Trump”—and yet more hysteria from both sides of the political aisle. Associated Press reporter Hettena goes back to the origins of Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia to walk us step by step through the years, showing how the president and his organization reached out to Russian business interests and government officials in order to stay afloat after the collapse of his casinos left Trump on the verge of financial disaster. Anyone seeking clarity on the events that led to the Special Counsel investigation will want to read this book, which offers a painstakingly researched dive into Trump’s relationship with various Russian actors over the years.

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, by Michael McFaul
McFaul, a longtime expert on Russia’s relations with the U.S. (and a former ambassador to that country), details what he observed firsthand while in Moscow over the course of his career. McFaul argues that the current state of Russian politics, wherein Vladimir Putin is essentially president for life and Russia stands as a steadfast opponent to American interests, wasn’t inevitable; he blames diplomatic and military missteps under the Bush administration for driving a wedge between our countries that led Putin to seek other avenues towards reestablishing Russian global influence. McFaul isn’t a fan of President Obama’s approach to Russia, either, and offers his own assessment of of Donald Trump’s role as a useful tool for Putin.

When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency, by Donald Rumsfeld
Rumsfeld, who served as President Ford’s chief of staff and secretary of defense (and who was also Ford’s personal friend) offers a firsthand account of a remarkable, remarkably short presidency. The only person to serve in the role who was never elected either president or vice president, Ford took on a country that had lost faith in government in the wake of Watergate and Nixon’s fall. Rumsfeld argues persuasively that if Ford wasn’t totally successful as a chief executive, he certainly managed to stave off political and societal chaos when faith in the office was at an all-time low. Rumsfeld shares a fly-on-the-wall view of Ford’s battle against Ronald Reagan for the 1976 nomination, which now looks like the last gasp of old-school conservative politics before the Reagan Revolution changed everything.

Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall–and Those Fighting to Reverse It, by Steven Brill
Brill, the founder of Court TV, traces what he sees as a five-decade long decline in American society, charting the course of the well-intentioned reforms that have led us here. First making his case that in the modern age, America has become a hollow economy of low-paying jobs with expensive and substandard healthcare, housing, and infrastructure, as well as a society where the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, Brill then goes on to explain how these conditions came about. Things like civil service reform and an effort on the part of universities to be more inclusive seemed like fine ideas when first pursued decades ago, he argues, but each have curdled into tools by which the elite protect their positions at the expense of everyone else. Brill celebrates the people and groups that are attempting to fix what’s wrong, and sees cause for hope going forward.

The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World, by Simon Winchester
If celebrating expertise and skill is out of fashion in America in some ways, but that doesn’t stop Winchester—the son of an engineer—from making the argument that the wonders of modern life can be laid at the feet of engineers, for whom precision is a lofty and worthwhile goal. Winchester gives credit for everything from high-tech scientific equipment like the Hubble Telescope to the modern-day automobile to the fearless engineers who slowly built the modern age one piston and perfectly-measured part at a time. Bringing together history lessons, scientific lectures, and often-raucous biographical sketches, he paints a clear picture of the debt the world owes to the thinkers and the tinkerers, many of whom operated outside the boundaries of what was precisely ethical or legal at the time.