A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.

A People's History of the United States - "You wanna read a real history book?" Matt Damon asks his therapist in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. "Read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. That book will knock you on your a--."

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Not many people realize Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege

The Great Deluge - In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline.

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn

Arctic Dreams - Written in prose as memorably pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is a timeless mediation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and to haunt our imaginations.

Boone: A Biography - reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surround him.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - this complex book attempts to describe the entire history of the human race.