So far, 2025 has been a bumper year for this kind of writing. Whether drawing from recently unearthed archives, reframing cultural myths, or spotlighting moments of political implosion, the finest new history titles this year are alive with insight. And crucially, they speak to our current moment, asking why some stories have until now been buried in the footnotes.
From the salons of Paris to the train platforms of Blackpool: here are six of the most arresting new history books to read now: thoughtful, beautifully composed, and intellectually nourishing.
Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife – Francesca Wade
Francesca Wade’s biography of Gertrude Stein is not only the most illuminating portrait of the iconic writer to date; it is also a feat of narrative recovery. Wade draws on newly available archival material, foregrounding Stein’s long-overlooked partner, Alice B. Toklas, to piece together a richly textured and more intimate Stein, one shorn of the mythos that has long obscured the legacy of the woman who, in 1936, said, ‘Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me'. With elegant prose and deft analysis, Wade explores the contradictions of Stein’s self-presentation, the influence she wielded over generations of artists and writers (we find her posing for Picasso's portrait and hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway), and the complicated afterlife of her work in the decades following her death. It is, above all, a portrait of a woman who bent literary history to her will, and whose legacy is more complex and more human than previously imagined. Nuanced, stylish, and quietly radical, the Sunday Times called it ‘strikingly accomplished.’
The Genius Myth: The Dangerous Allure of Rebels, Monsters and Rule-Breakers – Helen Lewis
In Sunday Times bestselling The Genius Myth, the utterly excellent Helen Lewis dismantles the cultural obsession with individual brilliance – and the price we pay for worshipping it uncritically. With characteristic wit and intellectual clarity, Lewis charts how the term ‘genius’ has been historically applied in ways that uphold power structures, often masking abuse, marginalising collaboration, and disproportionately excluding women and minorities. In her ever engaging voice, she relates why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests are for losers, examines the secret of The Beatles’ success and asks what we mean when we use the word ‘genius’ – who that includes and excludes and the myths that grow up around it (‘The tortured poet! The rebellious scientist! The monstrous artist! The tech disruptor!’)
Lewis makes the compelling case that genius should be seen not as an innate trait possessed by a select few, but as the outcome of networks, opportunity, and communal effort. A sharp, funny and necessary corrective to one of the most persistent cultural myths.
To the Sea by Train: The Golden Age of Railway Travel – Andrew Martin
With gentle humour and deep affection, Andrew Martin captures the heyday of British railway travel in this richly atmospheric history of seaside escapes by train. Drawing on railway ephemera, personal recollections and archival gems, Martin brings to life the magical period when a trip to the coast was both a thrilling adventure and a national ritual. Whether evoking the bustle of Paddington on a bank holiday morning or the particular magic of a soggy picnic beside a signal box, he writes with a pleasurably aching sense of nostalgia.
But this is far more than a wistful look back. Martin subtly explores how these journeys shaped British identity, democratised leisure, and left an indelible imprint on the imagination of a nation. It’s a delightful, socially observant book that feels like stepping onto a vintage carriage bound for the golden sands. As The Sunday Times says, it’s ‘a feast of anecdotage’.
King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Unmaking of the Modern
Middle East – Scott Anderson
Scott Anderson’s King of Kings is a sweeping, cinematic account of one of the 20th century’s most pivotal geopolitical ruptures: the fall of the Shah of Iran and the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Drawing on personal interviews, declassified documents and contemporary reporting, Anderson paints a complex portrait of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, not merely as a decadent autocrat, but as a figure from Shakespearean tragedy, undone by a mix of paranoia, hubris and Western entanglement. The result is both intimate and epic, told with narrative propulsion and the clarity of a seasoned war correspondent. Extremely timely, richly detailed, and deeply thought-provoking, King of Kings is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how past power struggles continue to reverberate today.
The Story Of A Murder – Hallie Rubenhold
Hallie Rubenhold, known for her mega hit The Five which drew portraits of the women killed by Jack The Ripper whose names had for so long been subsumed by their killer, now turns her lens to another of Britain’s most infamous crimes in The Story Of A Murder. Far from a lurid retelling of wife-killer Dr Crippen’s murder trial, Rubenhold digs beneath the surface to reveal the gendered assumptions, sensationalist press, and Victorian values that shaped both public opinion and the courtroom verdict. In doing so, she offers a fresh reading of Belle Elmore, not as a victim defined solely by her gruesome fate, but as a woman with ambition, agency, and dreams cut short.
With meticulous research and narrative clarity, Rubenhold reclaims a story long reduced to caricature, showing how justice can be distorted by social bias and media appetite. This is true crime as cultural history, revealing not just what happened, but why it mattered then and still matters now. Lucy Worsley calls it, ‘a unique combination of sleuthing, storytelling and compassion'.
