The past year has been a banner one for advocates of the importance of public history. In a year where so many have been left wanting for more, seeking clarity among the confusion wrought by an ever-complicated world, the past may help provide a guide to the future. From the presidential campaign to the Syrian refugee crisis to cracks in the foundations of post-war Western democracy, the role of the historian has taken on a new prominence, a trend that has included museums.

Many of this year’s best books were about museums, from Samuel Redman’s Bone Rooms, which provides much-needed foundation of the relationship between museums and Native Americans, to Richard Conniff’s House of Lost Worlds, which offers a wonderful history of paleontology. From the Smithsonian itself, the American History Museum’s Jon Grinspan wrote an illuminating glimpse into American electoral history with The Virgin Vote, and for those who have (and haven’t) had the opportunity to tour the Institution’s newest museum, the accompanying book Begin With the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture, comes as close as possible to replicating the experience.

Here are some other great history reads to add to your list that were published this past year.

Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich It’s rare for a book review to go viral, but The New York Times’ review (by Michiko Kakutani) of Ullrich’s first volume of a planned two-part biography of Adolf Hitler managed to do just that. Without ever explicitly drawing a connection to modern-day politics, Kakutani highlights how the rise of the fascist leader came to pass. Ullrich’s history presents a critical stripping of the myths behind Hitler’s ascension to power.

​ Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick



​Few characters in American history are as poorly understood as Revolutionary War figure Benedict Arnold. In Philbrick’s latest, the man whose name is synonomous with traitor gets a much more developed portrait. “Although it later became convenient to portray Arnold as a conniving Satan from the start, the truth is more complex and, ultimately, more disturbing,” wrote Philbrick in this excerpt published in Smithsonian magazine. “Without the discovery of his treason in the fall of 1780, the American people might never have been forced to realize that the real threat to their liberties came not from without, but from within.”

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

This finalist for the National Book Award chronicles the history of Forsyth County, Georgia, where Jim Crow laws were taken to their utter extreme. By practically banishing all non-White residents from its borders, the county sought to institutionalize not just white supremacy, but white purity. Phillips, who grew up in Forsyth, tells a story that brings together many of the threads of racial violence of post-Civil War America.