Books like

Books like Salt: A World History

12 books with a reading profile close to Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. Outward-looking and clear-cut; a moderate read.

1

The Potato

by Larry Zuckerman

Also outward-looking · history, economics

Larry Zuckerman traces the social evolution of the potato from a despised botanical curiosity to a foundational pillar of the Western economy between the late eighteenth century and World War I.
2

1929

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, economics

Andrew Ross Sorkin reconstructs the escalating collisions between federal regulators and financial titans leading up to the Great Crash.
3

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

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Sam Kean organizes the history of the world through the chemical elements, moving beyond the sterile rows of the periodic table to reveal the human chaos behind scientific discovery.
4

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Erik Larson chronicles the five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the surrender of Fort Sumter.
5

One Summer: America, 1927

by Bill Bryson

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Bill Bryson chronicles the rapid cultural and technological shifts in American life during five months in 1927.
6

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture

by Ross King

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In 1418, the architects of Florence faced a structural crisis: the massive central opening of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral remained uncovered, as no known building method could support a dome of such scale withou…
7

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

by Denise Kiernan

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In the early 1940s, the United States government constructed Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a secret city carved out of rural farmland to house seventy thousand residents working on the Manhattan Project.
8

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

by Timothy Egan

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan moved beyond the deep South to establish a stronghold in the American Midwest, specifically Indiana.
9

D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Stephen Ambrose reconstructs the Allied invasion of France through hundreds of oral histories from the men who fought on the ground.
10

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Stephen E.
11

By the Sword

by Richard Cohen

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Richard Cohen chronicles the technical and cultural evolution of swordplay from ancient Egypt to the modern Olympic Games.
12

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

by Garrett M. Graff

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Garrett M.

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