Travels Through Time: Nonfiction History Books for Teens

Prepared by Keith Barlog, August 2010

This is a list of nonfiction history books for teens. It is organized by time period and then divided into either "United States History" or "World History" (events occurring outside the United States). An attempt has been made to include appealing stories that are well-written and recommended as a good read, rather than just a dry list of historical facts. We have also tried to find books that are more than 150 pages, to satisfy a teacher's requirement, but not so long that a teen wouldn't want to read it. Books from the Adult and Teen Services Department and the Junior Room have been included.

This list can be used as a starting point. If you find a subject that appeals to you, ask a librarian to help you find other books on that topic. Also consider the Turning Points series by John Wiley and Sons and the Penguin Lives Series. The Turning Points series covers historic events and the Penguin Lives Series provide biographies of famous people. Both are well-written and short, usually less than 250 pages.

Pre 19th Century

United States History

910.45 BUR
The Pirates’ Pact: The Secret Alliances between History’s Most Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America by Douglas R. Burgess Jr. - 2008, 301 p. (Time period: 1660 – 1725)

968.7 TAY
Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors by Stephen Taylor - 2004, 297p. (Time period: 1782)

970.015 HEA
Columbus in the Americas by William Least Heat Moon - 2002, 182 p. (Time period: 1492 – 1504)

973.2 MOR
American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America by Edmund S. Morgan - 2009, 278 p. (Time period: 1600 – 1815)

974.02 VOW
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell - 2008, 254 p. (Time period: 1600 – 1775)

975.54251 PRI
Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation by David Price - 2003, 305p. (Time period: 1606 – 1634)

World History

526.62 SOB
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel - 1995, 184p. (Time period: 1700s)

709.45 WAL
The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World by Paul Robert Walker - 2002, 269p. (Time period: 1380s – 1450s)

937.7 BEA
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard - 2008, 360 p. (Time period: 79 AD)

940.21 CRO
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley - 2008, 336 p. (Time period: 1565 – 1573)

941.066 LON
The Plot against Pepys by James Long - 2007, 322 p. (Time period: 17th Century)

946.94 SHR
Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 by Nicholas Shrady - 2008, 228 p. (Time Period: 1755)

950.2 WEA
The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford - 2010, 317 p. (12th – 16th century)

996.18 TOO
Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare by John Toohey - 2000, 211p. (Time period: 1789)

Biography RALEIGH, W. Also in JB RALEIGH
Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado by Marc Aronson - 2000, 222 p. (Time period: 1550s – 1618)

J 614.5 MUR
An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy - 2003, 165p. (Time period: 1793)

J 973.313 KIE
Signing Their Lives Away: the Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence by Denise Kiernan - 2009, 255 p. (Time period: 1776)

JB HARRISON
The Longitude Prize by Joan Dash - 2000, 200p. (Time period: 1700s)

19th Century (1800s)

United States History

326 OWE
Black Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad by William A. Owens - 1997, 322p. (Time period: 1839)

362.734 HOL
Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America by Marilyn Irvin Holt - 1992, 248p. (Time period: 1853 – 1929)

364.1523 LAR
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson - 2003, 447p. (Time period: 1893)

380.1427 WEI
The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story by Gavin Weightman - 2003, 254p. (Time period: Early – mid 1800s)

384.15 GOR
A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable by John Steele Gordon - 2002, 240p. (Time period: 1860s)

609.22 SLA
Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century by Charles Slack - 2002, 274p. (Time period: mid 1800s)

916.48 KIN
Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King - 2004, 353p. (Time period: 1815)

919.8 PAR
Trial by Ice: The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition by Richard Parry - 2001, 321p. (Time period: 1871)

970.3 MAR - Also in JB SITTING BULL
Sitting Bull and His World by Albert Marrin - 2000, 246p. (Time period: 1830s – 1890)

972.87 BAL
Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas by Todd Balf - 2003, 331p. (Time period: 1850s)

973.46 FLE
The Louisiana Purchase by Thomas J. Fleming - 2003, 186p. (Time period: early 1800s)

973.52 MOL
The Flag, the Poet, and the Song: The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner by Irvin Molotsky - 2001, 240p. (Time period: early 1800s)

973.71 FAU
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust - 2008, 346 p. (Time period: 1861 – 1865)

973.7115 TOB
Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline Tobin - 1999, 208p. (Time period: 1860s)

973.73 PER
Touched with Fire: Five Presidents and the Civil War Battles That Made Them by James M. Perry - 2003, 335p. (Time period: 1861 – 1865)

973.7473 BOB
Testament: A Soldier's Story of the Civil War by Benson Bobrick - 2003, 277p. (Time period: 1861 – 1865)

973.785 VAN
A Yankee Spy in Richmond: The Civil War Diary of "Crazy Bet" Van Lew by Elizabeth L. Van Lew - 1996, 166p. (Time period: 1861 – 1865)

973.894 WAL
The Boys of '98: Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders by Dale L. Walker - 1998, 304p. (Time period: 1898)

977.311 GRE
Death in the Haymarket: A Story Of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America by James Green - 2006, 383 p. (Time period: 1886)

977.533 GES
Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History by Denise Gess - 2002, 267p. (Time period: 1871)

978.01 AMB
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose - 1996, 511p. (Time period: 1801 – 1809)

978.02 WOM
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey - 1992, 278p. (Time period: 1840s – 1860s)

Biography KEMBLE, F.
Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars by Catherine Clinton - 2000, 302p. (Time period: 1820s – 1870s)

Biography LEE, R.E.
Robert E. Lee: A Penguin Life by Roy Blount - 2003, 210p. (Time period: 1807 – 1870)

J 973.733 LAL
Grierson’s Raid: A Daring Cavalry Strike through the Heart of the Confederacy by Tom Lalicki - 2004, 200p. (Time period: 1863)

JB BROWN
One More Valley, One More Hill: The Story of Aunt Clara Brown by Linda Lowery - 2002, 222p. (Time period: 1800 – 1885)

JB BROWN
Fiery Vision: The Life and Death of John Brown by Clinton Cox - 1997, 230p. (Time period: 1800 – 1859)

World History

423 WIN
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester - 1998, 242p. (Time period: 1850 – 1890s)

530.092 ACZ
Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science by Amir D. Aczel - 2003, 275p. (Time period: 1800s)

551.792 BOL
The Ice Finders: How a Poet, a Professor, and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age by Edmund Blair Bolles - 1999, 257p. (Time period: mid 1800s)

614.514 JOH
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson - 2006, 299 p. (Time period: 1854)

910.9164 PHI
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nat Philbrick - 2000, 302p. (Time period: 1819)

941.5081 BAR - Also in J 941.5 BAR
Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845 – 1850 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti - 2001, 184p. (Time period: 1845 – 1850)

959.8 WIN
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester - 2003, 416p. (Time period: 1883)

967.0423 DUG
Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone by Martin Dugard - 2003, 340p. (Time period: 1866 – 1873)

20th Century (1900s)

United States History

323.092 HAN
The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation by Drew D. Hansen - 2003, 293p. (Time period: 1963)

370.19342 BEA - Also in PB NF BEA
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals - 1994, 312p. (Time period: 1950s)

597.31 CAP - Also in BRIDGE YA 597.31 CAP
Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence by Michael Capuzzo - 2001, 317p. (Time period: 1916)

599.789 KIE
Chasing the Panda: How an Unlikely Pair of Adventurers Won the Race to Capture the Mythical "White Bear" by Michael Kiefer - 2002, 230p. (Time period: 1936)

614.5112 LEA
Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health by Judith Walzer Leavitt - 1996, 331p. (Time period: early 1900s)

614.5123 SAL - Also in BRIDGE YA 614.5123 SAL
The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic by Gay Salisbury - 2003, 303p. (Time period: 1925)

614.518 KOL
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Bari Kolata - 1999, 330p. (Time period: 1918)

629.453 KRA
Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz - 2000, 415p. (Time period: 1960s)

634.9 MAC
Young Men & Fire by Norman Maclean - 1992, 301p. (Time period: 1949)

781.66092 BEA
The Beatles Come to America by Martin Goldsmith - 2004, 196p. (Time period: 1964)

796.357 ASI
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof - 1963, 302p. (Time period: 1919)

796.357 SIM
Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball by Scott Simon - 2002, 168p. (Time period: 1940s)

7796.48 SCH
Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics by Jeremy Schaap - 2007, 272 p. (Time period: 1936)

910.916345 MAA Also in PB NF MAA
The Terrible Hours: The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Rescue in History by Peter Maas - 1999, 259p. (Time period: 1939)

940.439 BES
The Greatest Day in History: How, On the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month, the First World War Finally Came to an End by Nicholas Best - 2008, 304 p. (Time period: 1914 – 1918)

940.53 PYL
Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II by James Tobin - 1997, 312p. (Time period: 1939 – 1945)

940.5421 ABD
Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 2004, 302 p. (Time period: 1939 – 1945)

940.54214 FUS
The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944 – 1945 by Paul Fussell - 2003, 184p. (Time period: 1944 – 1945)

940.5425 NEW - Also in PB NF NEW
Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster by Richard F. Newcomb - 2001, 326p. (Time period: 1945)

940.5426 BRA
Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima by James Bradley - 2000, 376p. (Time period: 1939 – 1945)

940.5459 STA - Also in PB NF STA
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton - 2001, 333p. (Time period: 1945)

951.058 CUN
Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989 by Philip J. Cunningham - 2009, 291 p. (Time period: 1989)

956.70443 ENG
A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest: On the Ground in Baghdad Before, During and After the War by Richard Engel - 2004, 256 p. (Time Period: 1996 – 2004)

958.1047 JUN
War by Sebastian Junger - 2010, 287 p. (Time period: 2007 – 2008)

959.704 CAP
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo - 1977, 346 p. (Time period: 1961 – 1975)

959.704 WOL
In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff - 1994, 221p. (Time period: 1961 – 1975)

973.915 BEH
Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America by Edward Behr - 1996, 262p. (Time period: 1919 – 1933)

976.4139 LAR
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson - 1999, 323p. (Time period: early 1900s)

977.311 BON
The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy by Jay R. Bonansinga - 2004, 280p. (Time period: 1915)

978 EGA
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan - 2006, 340 p. (Time period: 1901 – 1939)

978.282 GRE
Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene - 2002, 264p. (Time period: 1940s)

IN NF Jacobson
The 9–11 Report: a Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson; illustrated by Ernie Colon - 2006, 117 p. (Time period: 2001)

YA 940.545 NEL - Also in J 940.545 NEL
Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis by Peter Nelson - 2002, 201p. (Time period: 1940s)

YA Biography GARNER, E.R. - Also in JB GARNER
Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany by Eleanor Ramrath Garner - 2003, c1999, 269p. (Time period: 1938 – 1946)

World History

363.11 GRE
Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster by Melissa Fay Greene - 2003, 342p. (Time period: 1958)

538.768 JAG
The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis by Lucy Jago - 2001, 297p. (Time period: 1899 – early 1900s)

539.762 CAT
The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom by Brian Cathcart - 2005, 308p. (Time period: 1920s – 1930s)

811.09 BAL
Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian - 1998, 289 p. (1915 – 1923)

919.89 ALE
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander - 1998, 211p. (Time period: 1914 – 1917)

940.4814 MAC
The Englishman's Daughter: A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I by Ben Macintyre - 2002, 254p. (Time period: 1914 – 1918)

940.5425 PEL
The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by Charles Pellegrino - 2010, 367 p. (Time period: 1945)

951.042 CHA
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang - 1997, 290 p. (Time period: 1937)

951.058 CHI
Children of the Dragon: The Story of Tianamen Square - 1990, 223p. (Time period: 1989)

951.9 KIM
Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor by Yong Kim - 2009, 168 p. (Time Period: 1994 – 2000)

959.3 KRA
Wave of Destruction: The Stories of Four Families and History’s Deadliest Tsunami by Erich Krauss - 2006, 244 p. (Time Period: 2004)

959.604 UNG
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung - 2000, 240p. (Time period: 1975 – 1980)

967.571 GOU
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Phillip Gourevitch - 1999, 355 p. (Time Period: 1994)

IN NF KUBERT
Fax from Sarajevo: A Story of Survival by Joe Kubert - 1996, 207 p.

IN NF SACCO
Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco - 2000, 227 p.

J 940.5315 ROG
Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust by Barbara Rogasky - 2002, 256p. (Time period: 1939 – 1945)

General History

355.0082 MIL
Hell Hath No Fury: True Stories of Women at War from Antiquity to Iraq by Rosalind Miles - 2008, 385 p.

297 ARM
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong - 2000, 222 p.

909 MAC
Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet by Ian F. McNeely - 2008, 318 p.

909.04924 CAH
Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks by Thomas Cahill - 1998, 291 p.

909.09821 CAH
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill - 2003, 304 p.

941.501 CAH
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill - 1996, 246 p.

909 SAS
The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization’s Best Bits by Erik Sass - 2008, 416 p.

IN NF ZINN
A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn - 2008, 273 p.