March’s Best New History Books

The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, by Timothy Egan
In the Great Famine of the 1840s, a charismatic young Irishman named Thomas Francis Meager led a failed revolt against the British and was sent to a prison colony in Tasmania for his troubles. Shortly thereafter he escaped to the United States, where he went on to lead New York’s Irish Brigade in the Civil War, become a general, get shot off his horse twice during battle, and eventually end up as the territorial governor of Montana. The incomparable Timothy Egan’s latest is a colorful, larger-than-life portrait of a colorful, larger-than-life man.

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
This widely praised examination of poverty and housing from Harvard sociologist Desmond, which has already been compared to Barbara Ehrenreich’s seminal book Nickel and Dimed, is based on years of ethnographic research conducted in some of Milwaukee’s poorest areas. Evicted follows eight families struggling—and sometimes failing—to avoid homelessness, interweaving their stories with painstaking policy research and clear calls to action, resulting in a poignant, timely, and important work.

Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division, by Jimmy Blackmon
Written by the commander of the Pale Horse aviation task force during the Afghan War, Pale Horse takes readers inside the world of airborne support. Although Blackmon writes that he never questioned the need for the American presence in Afghanistan, he also engages honestly with the psychological stress soldiers endure, dwelling on the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder alongside accounts of friendship, bravery, and sacrifice. Praised by the likes of General (Ret.) David Petraeus and Bob Woodward, Pale Horse is a good addition to any military buff’s library.

The Devil’s Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich, by Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney
Alfred Rosenberg was one of the key theorists of Nazi Germany, the man responsible for much of the party’s racial policy and the promotion of the “master race” theory. At the end of the war, his diary was discovered in a Bavarian castle, and prosecutors used it during the Nuremberg trials—but afterward, the book vanished. Rumors of the diary resurfaced in 2001, when it came to the attention of author Wittman, a consultant specializing in the recovery of lost artifacts. The Devil’s Diary is the story of the diary, its eventual recovery, and its harrowing content, providing an intense look at one of the major architects of the Holocaust.

All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer, by Brian Castner
When Castner, the author of The Long Walk and the ex-head of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq, learned that his friend Matt had been killed by an EOD, he set out to investigate the person believed to be behind the attack, an elusive bomb maker known as The Engineer. All the Ways We Kill and Die, a tightly-paced, powerfully personal account that reads like a thriller, is the story of that investigation, as Castner talks with widows, survivors, drone pilots, contractors, and engineers, and meditates on the ways ongoing conflicts in the Middle East have changed warfare.

Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Adam Hochschild
Around 3,000 Americans participated in the Spanish Civil War—most famously Hemingway, who is also responsible for For Whom the Bell Tolls, the war’s most lasting account—and Americans at home breathlessly followed newspaper accounts of the struggle overseas. Spain in Our Hearts, written by the author of the critically acclaimed To End All Wars, follows a dozen historical figures as they participate, on one side or another, with the war effort, from Hemingway, to Orwell, to the Texas oilman in charge of Texaco who sold Franco fuel at lowered prices and on credit. A fascinating, powerfully written account.