If observing current affairs unfold over these past few years has taught us anything, it’s that history remains helplessly subjective, and that everything we know – or think we know – might just be wrong. This is why it is boom time for modern-day historians to rewrite what was once presumed common accepted knowledge, and to bring to bear upon their subjects not just greater clarity but different perspectives. History may well be that thing that lives in the past, but, as these highlights from 2025 show, it remains as thrillingly relevant as ever.
We Were There by Lanre Bakare
Spanning 40 years of Black influence on the nation, Bakare, a journalist with British/Nigerian heritage, explains how, even during times of civil unrest and rampant racism, the UK’s Black diaspora made an indelible impact far beyond the cultural hub of London. Tracing the communities of Bradford, Birmingham and Cardiff, he also looks at Liverpool’s radical Black activism that saw the toppling of slavery-linked statues, the celebrated Reno club in Manchester’s Moss Side and the Northern soul movement in Wigan.
Bodley Head, £22
The Illegals by Shaun Walker
Shaun Walker is The Guardian‘s central and eastern Europe correspondent, an expert on Russia and Ukraine and has spent more than a decade living in Moscow. In this history of Russian spies he explores how, for the past century, sleeper agents have infiltrated countries around the world, living as ordinary citizens for decades undercover. Once deeply embedded, they often go undetected for the rest of their lives, passing themselves off as natives, and fooling not just the friends they make but, in some cases, even their own children. This book is stranger than fiction, startlingly relevant and proves just how far “the Soviets were far ahead of their adversaries when it came to espionage”.
Profile, £22
El Generalísimo: Franco – Power, Violence and the Quest for Greatness by Giles Tremlett
Having taken inspiration from the likes of Hitler and Mussolini, Francisco Franco ruled Spain with a dictator’s iron fist from 1939 until 1975. Here, Tremlett traces the origin story of Europe’s youngest general, from difficult childhood to a violent and murderous dictatorship, to assess his lasting impact on Spain. Amid news reports that some younger Spaniards are now looking more sympathetically at his legacy, this reads as a cautionary tale.
Bloomsbury, £30
Motherland by Julia Ioffe
The story of modern Russia told through the lens of its women, from revolution to utopia and now autocracy, Motherland also tells the personal story of author Ioffe, and how she fled her country of birth to the US before returning as an adult to reassess its treatment of women. How, she asks, can inspirational individuals like the members of Pussy Riot or Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny, achieve rightful prominence and influence while still living within so stifling a patriarchy?
William Collins, £25
Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistresses and Dr Crippen, by Hallie Rubenhold
Few authors are better at recounting familiar historical stories from a fresh perspective than Rubenhold, whose 2019 award-winning book, The Five, was the first biography to contextualise the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper. Her latest tells of the infamous Dr Crippen, who was convicted of the murder of his second wife Cora Turner, and executed in 1910 while still protesting his innocence. Crippen’s perspective has been endlessly retold over the years; Rubenfold here tells it from Turner’s.
Doubleday, £25
Domination by Dr Alice Roberts
The British academic and broadcaster’s latest is as much literary travelogue as historical account, as Roberts follows the early threads of Christianity to ask: how did this religion spread, by whom and why? Taking us on an investigative journey that stretches from the South Wales to Alexandria in fourth-century Constantinople, she hunts down the true story about the relationship between the Roman Empire and the world’s most popular religion.
Simon & Schuster, £22
Queer Georgians: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers and Homemakers by Anthony Delaney
The presenter of the hit podcast After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal performs an act of “restorative history” here, to tell the stories of those people previously written out of history for the sake of social decorum and gender norms. If you’ve been intrigued by the gay romances that featured in Bridgerton, or the legend of Anne Lister, the inspiration behind Sally Wainwright’s 2019 TV drama Gentleman Jack, then Queer Georgians brings both – and more – vividly to life.
Doubleday, £22
The Book of Revelations: Women and Their Secrets from the 1950s to the Present Day by Juliet Nicolson
An intriguing book with an unusual narrative, Nicolson’s central thesis is that the average person “is keeping 13 secrets at any one time, five of which they’ve never shared with a soul”. She explores the changing nature of secrets held by three generations of women – from the 1940s, 60s and 70s – by setting her own family’s stories (her bisexual grandparents) against society’s shifting mores around sex, feminism and gender, and how family secrets today, which can unfold across social media, means that public shaming has become “a bloodsport”.
Chatto & Windus, £22
The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival by Anne Sebba
Much has been written about the restorative power of music, and here Anne Sebba, whose previous subjects have included Mother Teresa and Wallis Simpson, looks at the role it played in a death camp. In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra be formed among the female prisoners. They would play marching music for their fellow inmates, and give weekly concerts for Nazi officers. “Being in the orchestra was to save their lives,” she writes in this moving story.
W&N, £22
38 Londres Street by Philippe Sands
The author of East West Street returns with a mixture of personal memoir and historical detective work to tell the story of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In 1998, shortly after arriving in London, the former president was arrested on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. Sands, who also works as a lawyer, was enlisted to advise him on his claim for immunity, but elected instead to represent a human rights organisation to bring him to justice. His fascinating book explains what happened next.
W&N, £25
Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee: An Epically Short History of Our Kings and Queens by Charlie Higson
Far lighter relief comes in the form of Higson (formerly of The Fast Show) and his joyful romp through the Normans, the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the Stuarts, to tell the tale of the British monarchy throughout the ages. This encompasses, along the way, treachery, incest and the “War of Jenkins’ Ear”, utilising comedy to tell the tale of who ruled the country when and, crucially, “whether they were any good at it”.
Mudlark, £22
Legenda: The Real Women Behind the Myths That Shaped Europe by Janina Ramirez
Throughout the centuries, medieval women like Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories cursorily twisted and weaponised, as required. Ramirez aims to correct this imbalance by finding out who the real women really were. Joan of Arc, for example, may well have suffered from mental illness or anorexia, while St Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century Dominican activist, was later used by Pope John Paul II as an example of how the modern Catholic Church needed more female leaders.
WH Allen, £25
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet
The BBC’s chief international correspondent first checked into the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul on Christmas Eve in 1988, and has been returning regularly ever since. While there, she has witnessed a Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, the US invasion and the stranglehold of the Taliban. What we know of Afghanistan tends mostly to be wrenched from the news headlines; here, a reporter adds context, depth and nuance.
Hutchinson Heinemann, £25
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick
China’s one-child policy ran for 36 years, between 1979 and 2015. Any couple that dared have more than one was not only heavily fined, but ran the risk of having that child confiscated and then farmed out for adoption overseas. Demick provides an overview of this astonishingly ill-judged scheme alongside the particular case of separated twins, one of whom remained in China, the other raised in the US, and how Demick’s own intervention helped reunite them. A remarkable book.
Granta, £20
