Microhistory: Social Histories of Just One Thing
3. 
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by:
Simon Winchester
3.84 avg rating — 120,599 ratings 4. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating — 55,256 ratings 5. 
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by:
Dava Sobel
3.99 avg rating — 75,016 ratings 
11. 
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
by:
Deborah Blum
4.01 avg rating — 36,513 ratings 12. 
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
by:
Mark Kurlansky
3.92 avg rating — 24,359 ratings 
14. 
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
by:
Erik Larson
4.05 avg rating — 70,007 ratings 15. 
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by:
John M. Barry
3.98 avg rating — 42,018 ratings 
17. 
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
by:
Jon Krakauer
4.01 avg rating — 220,431 ratings 18. 
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
by:
Simon Singh
4.30 avg rating — 28,487 ratings 19. 
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics 4.39 avg rating — 352,740 ratings
20. 
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
by:
Erik Larson
3.89 avg rating — 215,175 ratings 21. 
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
by:
Mary Roach
3.95 avg rating — 59,459 ratings 
23. 
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
by:
Charles C. Mann
4.05 avg rating — 93,175 ratings 
25. 
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
by:
Sam Kean
3.93 avg rating — 54,822 ratings 
27. 
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by:
Candice Millard
4.22 avg rating — 81,268 ratings 28. 
The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
by:
Simon Winchester
3.82 avg rating — 13,926 ratings 29. 
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
by:
Dan Koeppel
3.81 avg rating — 5,278 ratings 30. 
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
by:
Simon Winchester
3.88 avg rating — 21,501 ratings 31. 
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
by:
Isabel Wilkerson
4.48 avg rating — 113,279 ratings 32. 
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by:
Randy Shilts
4.39 avg rating — 28,864 ratings 33. 
Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
by:
Ross King
3.91 avg rating — 27,847 ratings 34. 
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
by:
Kate Moore
4.16 avg rating — 176,354 ratings 
36. 
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by:
Malcolm Gladwell
4.01 avg rating — 844,203 ratings 
39. 
Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
by:
Mike Dash
3.66 avg rating — 2,884 ratings 
41. 
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
by:
Tony Horwitz
4.10 avg rating — 24,890 ratings 
43. 
45. 
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us
by:
Tom Vanderbilt
3.72 avg rating — 8,117 ratings 
48. 
Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
by:
Karen Abbott
3.63 avg rating — 13,090 ratings 
50. 
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
by:
Mark Pendergrast
3.69 avg rating — 2,998 ratings 51. 
The Calendar : The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days 3.84 avg rating — 1,101 ratings
52. 
Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour That Changed the World
by:
Simon Garfield
3.67 avg rating — 1,876 ratings 53. 
Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
by:
Robert Sullivan
3.72 avg rating — 4,485 ratings 54. 
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
by:
David McCullough
4.22 avg rating — 22,134 ratings 
56. 
59. 
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
by:
Trevor Corson
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 4,597 ratings 
61. 
Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages
by:
Anne Mendelson
3.62 avg rating — 550 ratings 
63. 
Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind
by:
Henry Hobhouse
3.82 avg rating — 621 ratings 
66. 
Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
by:
Gina Kolata
3.91 avg rating — 7,614 ratings 
68. 
71. 
The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World
by:
Larry Zuckerman
3.61 avg rating — 556 ratings 72. 
73. 
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
by:
Rose George
4.02 avg rating — 2,604 ratings 74. 
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
by:
Bill Wasik
3.72 avg rating — 11,393 ratings 75. 
77. 
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by:
Tracy Kidder
4.20 avg rating — 87,482 ratings 78. 
No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
by:
Anne Macdonald
4.04 avg rating — 688 ratings 
80. 
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by:
Marc Levinson
3.86 avg rating — 6,742 ratings 81. 
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers
by:
Tom Standage
3.95 avg rating — 3,526 ratings 82. 
Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage
by:
Stephanie Coontz
3.98 avg rating — 3,625 ratings 83. 
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
by:
Charles C. Mann
4.12 avg rating — 20,586 ratings 
86. 
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 4.12 avg rating — 9,480 ratings
87. 
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption 4.39 avg rating — 989,147 ratings
88. 
Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
by:
Giles Milton
3.82 avg rating — 5,238 ratings 89. 
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
by:
John Vaillant
4.12 avg rating — 12,028 ratings 
91. 
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen 4.30 avg rating — 228,773 ratings
92. 
Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
by:
Joshua Zeitz
3.84 avg rating — 3,433 ratings 
94. 
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
by:
Russell Shorto
4.17 avg rating — 11,142 ratings 95. 
E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation
by:
David Bodanis
4.10 avg rating — 8,263 ratings 96. 
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by:
Katherine Boo
3.98 avg rating — 114,811 ratings 
98. 
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
by:
Richard Preston
4.16 avg rating — 119,580 ratings 
