8 Highly Anticipated New History Books Coming in 2025

What happens when a family of five and their dog become castaways at sea? It might sound like the plot of a survival thriller, but it’s the beginning of the true story of the Walkers, who went missing at sea in 1887. When a terrible storm destroyed the ship that Frederick Walker captained, they found themselves on a remote island inhabited by a mysterious yet friendly man named Hans. Although the veteran castaway helps his new neighbors, the Walkers discover something sinister about the stranger.

Eurasia, not America, is the true heavyweight of the modern era, argues Hal Brands in his comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of American conflict with three Eurasian superpowers: Russia, Iran, and China. Eurasia is home to the majority of the world’s population and industry, touches all four oceans, and is of incalculable strategic value. It’s no wonder the landmass is no stranger to massive war and conflict. 

In the 20th century, Germany and the Soviet Union both tried to become the dominant Eurasian force, and now a new rivalry between the United States and the trio of China, Russia, and Iran has emerged. The Eurasian Century is here to give context on these past conflicts and inform us of the stakes for the future.

The world was forever shifted after the conclusion of both World Wars, and Western society was left with a singular benchmark of atrocity: the Holocaust. How will the world react when the current war in Palestine concludes? Why does the Global North refrain from calling the current conflict a genocide? Why do two halves of the globe struggle to communicate, and is there any way to rectify it? 

Pankaj Mishra sets out to answer these questions and more in a history book that looks at the future as much as it does the past, and hopes to start conversations that help humans across the globe understand each other’s pain. 

Victoria Amelina was working on a novel when Russia invaded her native Ukraine in 2022. The sudden onset of war took her to the world of war crimes research, documenting her own findings and stories of the other heroic women she encountered, like a lawyer who joined the frontlines and a librarian that uncovered the murder of a children’s author. 

Amelina took pictures of the countless ruins that littered her homeland, recorded eyewitness testimonies, and above all, did what she did best: told stories, in this case true ones. She would not get the chance to document the end of the war—she was killed by a Russian missile in the summer of 2023. What she leaves behind is an account of war and resistance, unfiltered and unrestrained.

Elisabeth and Eugenie, the wives of Emperor Franz Joseph and Napoleon III respectively, were not just some of the most famous women of their time, but representations of a new era of what was expected from a queen. They were beautiful, brave, and heavily involved with the dramatic politics of their time. Europe’s tumultuous 19th century is seen through their trials, defeats, betrayals, and victories.

John Green may be best known as one of the leading names of YA fiction, but the author is also making great strides into history and non-fiction. After releasing his bestseller The Anthropocene Reviewed, Green harnessed his passion for global healthcare and the history of literature with Everything is Tuberculosis. 

He intertwines the history of the disease and its effect on culture and science with a personal account of a young tuberculosis patient named Henry that Green met in Sierra Leone in 2019. The book not only shares the past of tuberculosis, but how society can affect its future.

Lucy Adlington, bestselling author of The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, returns with another intimate look at the victims of the Holocaust: four women who, despite never having met, were connected both by their experiences in the genocide and, strangely enough, possessing a red sweater that would play a major role in their lives. The accounts focus both on their struggles and suffering during the Holocaust, but also celebrates their resilience, strength, and tenacity, piecing together lost fragments of history with a simple sweater.

We're still awaiting cover art for this April release, a look into the judicial proceedings following the capture of two infamous war criminals that is as much a detective story as it is a legal one. Philippe Sands chronicles the 1998 arrest of Augusto Pinochet, dictator of Chile and instigator of thousands of disappearances and torture at a notorious detention center found at the titular address in Santiago. 

30 years before and a couple thousand miles away, SS Commander Walter Rauff would be arrested on the southern tip of Chile and indicted for his role in the Holocaust in the Nuremberg Trials. Sands brings us on a journey to show how these two trials, and these two evil men, are surprisingly intertwined.