The Shelves

20th Century Books

A tight 20th century shortlist - built for quick decisions, not endless scrolling.

Last refreshed 2026-02-27. We keep tuning this list as new titles land and reader interest shifts.

1. The Most Awful Responsibility
Alex Wellerstein
The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age
2. The Book of Charlie
David Von Drehle
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
3. American Midnight
Adam Hochschild
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
4. Gangsters of Capitalism
Jonathan M. Katz
Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire
5. Gods of the Upper Air
Charles King
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
6. Countdown 1960
Chris Wallace, Mitch Weiss
Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America's Politics Forever
7. Bring the War Home
Kathleen Belew
Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
8. Myth America
Kevin M. Kruse, Julian E. Zelizer
Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past
9. Nothing Random
Gayle Feldman
Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built
10. The Declassification Engine
Matthew Connelly
The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets
11. Why Nothing Works
Marc J. Dunkelman
Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back
12. Kings and Pawns
Howard Bryant
Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America
13. The Devil Reached Toward the Sky
Garrett M. Graff
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
14. Baseless
Nicholson Baker
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
15. The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes
The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition
16. The Bookshop
Evan Friss
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
17. The Right
Matthew Continetti
The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism
18. The Broken Heart of America
Walter Johnson
The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States
19. America's Bank
Roger Lowenstein
America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
20. King: A Life
Jonathan Eig
A Biography pick for readers exploring King: A Life.
21. Zero Fail
Carol Leonnig
Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
22. Palo Alto
Malcolm Harris
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World
23. The Manhattan Project
Cynthia C. Kelly
The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians
24. How We Get Free
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Barbara Smith
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

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