Chicago History (nonfiction)
2. 
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
by:
Isabel Wilkerson
4.48 avg rating — 113,305 ratings 
5. 
Ugly Prey: An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence That Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago 4.02 avg rating — 272 ratings
6. 
Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
by:
Karen Abbott
3.63 avg rating — 13,089 ratings 7. 
The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation
by:
Natalie Y. Moore
4.03 avg rating — 2,071 ratings 
9. 
City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
by:
Donald L. Miller
4.07 avg rating — 1,696 ratings 
10. 
12. 
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation
by:
Adam Cohen
4.15 avg rating — 916 ratings 13. 
Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight
by:
Jon Wiener
4.09 avg rating — 276 ratings 
15. 
17. 
Our America: Life And Death On The South Side Of Chicago
by:
LeAlan Jones
4.30 avg rating — 2,082 ratings 19. 
County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital
by:
David A. Ansell
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 993 ratings 19. 
Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
by:
James R. Green
4.06 avg rating — 1,190 ratings 21. 
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
by:
Sudhir Venkatesh
3.73 avg rating — 828 ratings 22. 
Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing
by:
D. Bradford Hunt
4.04 avg rating — 121 ratings 23. 
Scandal on the South Side: The 1919 Chicago White Sox
by:
Jacob Pomrenke
3.92 avg rating — 36 ratings 24. 
24. 
American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto
by:
Sudhir Venkatesh
3.77 avg rating — 350 ratings 26. 
The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream
by:
Thomas Dyja
3.51 avg rating — 1,404 ratings 27. 
Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890-1919
by:
Robin F. Bachin
3.83 avg rating — 24 ratings 28. 
Blood Runs Green: The Murder That Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago
by:
Gillian O'Brien
3.24 avg rating — 134 ratings 29. 
City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
by:
Gary Krist
3.65 avg rating — 3,344 ratings 29. 
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights
by:
Steve Sheinkin
4.04 avg rating — 6,581 ratings 31. 
Al Capone's Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition
by:
John J. Binder
3.48 avg rating — 200 ratings 32. 
Chicago's Greatest Year, 1893: The White City and the Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by:
Joseph Gustaitis
4.05 avg rating — 19 ratings 
33. 
What Parish Are You From?: A Chicago Irish Community and Race Relations 3.07 avg rating — 14 ratings
33. 
The Pied Piper Of South Shore: Toys and Tragedy in Chicago
by:
Caryn Amster
3.90 avg rating — 10 ratings 37. 
The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds
by:
Gavin van Horn
3.90 avg rating — 98 ratings 37. 
Lords of the Levee: The Story of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink
by:
Lloyd Wendt
3.89 avg rating — 38 ratings 37. 
What Next, Chicago?: Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son
by:
Matt Rosenberg
4.50 avg rating — 32 ratings 40. 
Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention
by:
Frank Kusch
3.59 avg rating — 32 ratings 
43. 
South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration
by:
Marcia Chatelain
3.96 avg rating — 141 ratings 43. 
Chicago Seven: Testimony From the 1968 Democratic Convention Conspiracy Trial
by:
Abbie Hoffman
4.31 avg rating — 55 ratings 
43. 
Redlined: A Memoir of Race, Change, and Fractured Community in 1960s Chicago
by:
Linda Gartz
3.62 avg rating — 276 ratings 48. 
Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records
by:
Nadine Cohodas
4.03 avg rating — 156 ratings 
48. 
Avengers and Defenders: Glimpses of Chicago's Jewish Past
by:
Walter Roth
liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating 
52. 
All That Jazz: The Life and Times of the Musical Chicago
by:
Ethan Mordden
3.78 avg rating — 88 ratings 52. 
Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago's Cook County Public Defender's Office
by:
Kevin Davis
3.88 avg rating — 532 ratings 52. 
Chief O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago
by:
Francis O'Neill
3.64 avg rating — 11 ratings 56. 
Scandinavians in Chicago: The Origins of White Privilege in Modern America 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings
56. 
56. 
60. 
The Boys of Fairy Town: Sodomites, Female Impersonators, Third-Sexers, Pansies, Queers, and Sex Morons in Chicago's First Century
by:
Jim Elledge
3.75 avg rating — 156 ratings 60. 
God-Sized Dreams:: The Story of A Little Black Girl From The South Side Of Chicago
by:
Debra Williamson
3.92 avg rating — 24 ratings 63. 
Men of Mendel: Tales from Chicago's South Side and the Catholic School System of the 1960's 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings
63. 
What Would Jane Say? City-Building Women and a Tale of Two Chicagos
by:
Janice Metzger
3.36 avg rating — 14 ratings 65. 
Freedom's Ballot: African American Political Struggles in Chicago from Abolition to the Great Migration
by:
Margaret Garb
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings 65. 
65. 
68. 
68. 
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago
by:
Simon Baatz
3.71 avg rating — 3,692 ratings 71. 
Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago's South Side to the World
by:
Robert Palmer
4.22 avg rating — 1,994 ratings 72. 
Building the City of Spectacle: Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Remaking of Chicago
by:
Costas Spirou
3.09 avg rating — 11 ratings 72. 
The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville
by:
Derek S. Hyra
3.60 avg rating — 35 ratings 74. 
The Tunnel under the Lake: The Engineering Marvel That Saved Chicago (Second to None: Chicago Stories)
by:
Benjamin Sells
3.79 avg rating — 29 ratings 74. 
Chicago in the Age of Capital: Class, Politics, and Democracy during the Civil War and Reconstruction
by:
John B. Jentz
3.38 avg rating — 8 ratings 74. 
Chicago Made: Factory Networks in the Industrial Metropolis
by:
Robert Lewis
3.50 avg rating — 4 ratings 74. 
Fire on the Prairie: Chicago's Harold Washington and the Politics of Race
by:
Gary Rivlin
4.30 avg rating — 186 ratings 
78. 
The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld
by:
Herbert Asbury
3.65 avg rating — 454 ratings 
78. 
Crucibles of Black Empowerment: Chicago's Neighborhood Politics from the New Deal to Harold Washington
by:
Jeffrey Helgeson
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 4 ratings 
82. 
86. 
Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 1940-1960
by:
Arnold R. Hirsch
4.09 avg rating — 338 ratings 86. 
The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes
by:
Rick Geary
3.83 avg rating — 753 ratings 
86. 
First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875 - 1920
by:
Jeffrey S. Adler
3.91 avg rating — 23 ratings 90. 
Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago
by:
Lilia Fernández
3.97 avg rating — 66 ratings 90. 
Where are Poor People to Live?: Transforming Public Housing Communities
by:
Larry Bennett
4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings 
92. 
Confessions of the South Side Rapist: 25 Years of Terror in the Gateway City
by:
Mike Murphy
3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings 94. 
Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City
by:
Mary Pattillo
4.06 avg rating — 172 ratings 94. 
Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers
by:
Gus Russo
3.96 avg rating — 175 ratings 96. 
Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migration 4.35 avg rating — 20 ratings
96. 
City of American Dreams: A History of Home Ownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871-1919
by:
Margaret Garb
4.60 avg rating — 10 ratings 
98. 
Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life 3.79 avg rating — 75 ratings
98. 
When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago
by:
J.S. Fuerst
3.55 avg rating — 20 ratings