The legacy of Christianity is ambiguous at best. Followers of the Christian traditions espouse unconditional love of others as the central tenet of their faith, but violent acts against those outside the faith are frequently undertaken in the name of Christianity. As Tom Holland illustrates in Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, this tension between universalism (loving your neighbor as yourself) and exclusivism (shunning anyone who doesn’t embrace the Christian faith) lives at the heart of Christianity, resulting in the proliferation of various groups that all claim to be Christian.

In his sprawling and detailed look at the ways that Christianity grew to be such a powerful force in the Western world, Holland traverses widely over time and space to narrate the rise of Christianity, its adaptation of ideas from already existing religions, its fitful origins as a small group, its eventual official acceptance by the Roman Empire and its development of creeds, a canon of scripture and orthodoxy. Holland explores the ideas of early Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Origen and Irenaeus as they struggle to capture the duality of the Christian faith—the goodness manifested in God and Christ versus the evil manifested in the devil and his minions; the goodness associated with living spiritually (spirit) versus the evil of living materially (flesh). Holland follows Christianity though the Middle Ages and into the Reformation, when various factions of Christians evolved and held, often tenaciously, to their own versions of what it means to be a Christian. Additionally, Holland shows that Western culture in the 21st century—whether it claims to embrace Christianity or not—is thoroughly imbued by the language, thought and theology of a religious tradition that shuttles between universalism and exclusivism.

Holland’s writing energetically conducts us through some often-dull history and ponderous concepts to demonstrate just how insidious Christian beliefs are in modern culture.

Opening with a striking scene from Petrograd, Russia, at the Tsar’s estate in the winter of 1917, Crucible: The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917–1924, is a fascinating gallop through interwar Europe, told chronologically through the eyes of some of the era's most radical figures.

Dan Jones, author of The Templars, returns to dazzle readers with a fascinating look at the Crusades. And lest you hesitate because events that took place a thousand years ago appear irrelevant, rest assured: This is no dry, boring tome. Entering the world of Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands is a bit like plunging into the political machinations of the fight for the Iron Throne of Westeros, only in this case all the players and events are real.

Like “Game of Thrones,” this epic tale is peopled with a large cast. Helpfully, Jones begins with a chart of major characters (17 pages’ worth). The book also boasts several maps, copious source notes, lists of major rulers in the appendix and, of course, an extensive bibliography. In other words, even neophytes will feel well armed to appreciate the journey.

And what a journey (or rather journeys) it is. The book is organized into three parts, with the first section devoted to the personalities and events that birthed the crusader movement from the 1060s forward; the second takes place in the 12th century and focuses on crusader states in Syria and Palestine; and the third covers the events that precipitated the Second and Third Crusades in 1144 and 1187.

Jones’ focus on human characters and his strength as a storyteller are what make Crusaders a success. Vivid descriptions and the use of primary source quotes help readers span the centuries. The book begins, for instance, with a colorful scene between a Norman count reacting to advice from his courtiers: “Count Roger of Sicily lifted his leg and farted. ‘By the truth of my religion,’ he exclaimed, ‘there is more use in that than in what you have to say!’ ”

In a thought-provoking epilogue, Jones brings his narrative into the present day. For while the Crusades are part of history, violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims continue to shadow the 21st century. “The Crusades are over,” Jones notes in a final thought. “But as long as there are crusaders—real or imaginary—in the world, the war goes on and on.”

Maggie Paxson is an anthropologist who uses analytical methods to see how groups of people click. In her fieldwork, Paxson has seen countless examples of conflict and violence—so many, in fact, that she didn’t want to study war no more (as the old spiritual goes). She wanted to study peace. But instead of going “down by the riverside,” Paxson went to a plateau: the Plateau du Vivarais-Lignon in southern France.

The people of the plateau are extraordinary. They have provided refuge to the hunted and unwanted for centuries. Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, honored the plateau village of Le Chambon as “Righteous Among Nations” for their aid to Jewish refugees. Daniel Trocmé, who was a distant relative of Paxson, died in a concentration camp because he refused to abandon his Jewish students. Even now, the plateau continues to welcome and protect refugees. Here, Paxson thought, was the perfect laboratory for determining how peace can be created by a community. The Plateau is the result.

Paxson soon discovered that, unlike the individual acts of violence that make up a war, peace cannot be counted. Peace is not linear but is the result of the deliberate interaction of the past with the present to create a future. Consequently, Paxson’s book is also nonlinear. She pieces together her own memories, observations from her life among the inhabitants of the plateau and, especially, the details of Daniel Trocmé’s life and death. Paxson’s beautiful writing threads these stories together so exquisitely that at times I had to stop and take a breath, even cry, before carrying on.

Although it has elements of memoir, biography and anthropological fieldwork, The Plateau is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a complex portrait of a place whose inhabitants have made a commitment to loving the stranger who arrives at their door, even when to do so demands the greatest sacrifice. Paxson acknowledges the difficulty and danger that this kind of love demands, but ultimately The Plateau demonstrates that it isn’t an impossible ideal to achieve. It is real and attainable, because it has been and continues to be practiced on the plateau.

The liberation of Paris in August 1944 is one of the most compelling World War II stories. It lifted the spirits of the French people and had long-term political implications for them in the postwar world. As noted historian Jean Edward Smith relates in his authoritative and beautifully written The Liberation of Paris, a complex series of decisions, including those by two generals from opposing armies to change their strategies, led to the saving of many lives and the preservation of irreplaceable cultural treasures.

Paris, unlike other cities, was not bombed, but daily life was difficult for everyone except those who had money or collaborated with German occupiers. Thousands of French Jewish citizens and those from other countries residing in Paris were sent to concentration camps. The Germans exploited the French economy and workers. But by 1944, when Parisians understood that the Germans were losing the war, resistance hardened, and Charles de Gaulle, who had established a government in exile, moved in various ways to strengthen his position. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, had known de Gaulle before the war, had lived in Paris himself and was aware that partisan conflict in Paris could lead to communist control of the city. Despite opposition from his advisers, Eisenhower agreed to send some Allied troops to help French troops reclaim the city.

At the same time, General Dietrich von Choltitz, the newly named German commandant in Paris, concluded, after a meeting with Adolf Hitler, that his leader was an “insane man.” Although seriously concerned about the fate of his family if anything should go wrong, he defied Hitler’s orders to destroy Paris and got cooperation from most of his fellow officers and diplomats. Time was of the essence, and one wrong move could have doomed the effort.

This expertly crafted narrative is a gem, a model of how important and complex events can be conveyed for enlightenment to a general audience.

George Remus legally defended bootleggers. Then he decided to become one. His outrageous scheme involved circulating whiskey from distilleries (that he owned) to pharmacies (that he owned) and, along the way, being robbed by bandits (whom he employed). His flashy second wife, Imogene Holmes, helped him run the ever-growing empire. They bought a mansion. They threw parties. They lived lavishly. Behind the frenetic lifestyle of this German-immigrant-turned-millionaire was an unquenchable thirst, not for whiskey (he was a teetotaler) but for acceptance and admiration. 

When Holmes betrayed Remus by starting an affair with the prohibition agent Franklin Dodge, Remus began to exhibit signs of madness. These “brainstorms” culminated in murder: Remus shot Holmes at point-blank range. The following trial captured the attention of the country. Remus, ever hungry for the limelight, defended himself and pleaded “transitory insanity.” By the end, his fortune was gone.

In The Ghosts of Eden Park, Karen Abbott tells the story of Remus’ rise and fall with a novelist’s eye, and incredibly, every line of dialogue is taken directly from a primary source. Without embellishment or overt psychologizing, she pulls readers into the kaleidoscopic world of Jazz-Age America, full of flappers and whiskey parties, boisterous criminals and crooked government agents. Though Remus seemed unstoppable, he met his match in Mabel Willebrandt, a U.S. attorney and staunch feminist who was determined to bring him down.

As a resident of Cincinnati, where the crimes took place, I drove past the landmarks from Remus’ story: the sites of the Alms and Sinton hotels, the fateful roundabout in Eden Park. I was transfixed, not only by the incredible research that informed this compulsively readable book but also by what the story reveals about human nature, the interplay of brilliant and unpredictable individuals and the societies in which they live, and the way that greed, fame and lust can—and have—corrupted the motives of both lovers and enemies. If you are a fan of true crime, historical nonfiction and the Jazz Age, this is not a book to miss.

On March 13, 1940, an exiled Indian man killed the former Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab to avenge a massacre that took place nearly 21 years earlier. The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India’s Quest for Independence, by biographer and radio presenter Anita Anand, sheds critical light on one of history’s coldest dishes of revenge: Udham Singh’s murder of Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

The two men were fatally linked by the Amritsar Massacre. In April of 1919, O’Dwyer set off a chain of events that led General Reginald Dyer to order his men to fire on a crowd of thousands of unarmed men, women and children in Jallianwala Bagh, a popular garden in the Punjabi city of Amritsar. Estimates of the number of people killed range from the official 379 to over 1,000. Singh, who lived in Amritsar, swore that he would avenge the victims.

Singh and O’Dwyer could not have been less alike. One was an impoverished Punjabi orphan and the other an ambitious Anglo–Irish civil servant who became the second most powerful man in the Raj. Anand expertly weaves their stories together, making their unlikely meeting both inevitable and tragic. She also recognizes that many questions surrounding Singh will remain unanswered. The historical record is murky, and the intelligence files surrounding his case have only recently (and incompletely) been released. Singh himself—at turns a charming rogue, a spinner of tales and a passionate revolutionary—didn’t seem to know if he was a patriot, madman or pawn. This lack of clarity allowed Singh to be labeled either a martyr or a terrorist, depending on the point of view of the person telling his story. Anand, whose family was directly affected by the massacre, rejects these easy labels. Instead, she delves into the historical record with rigor and objectivity, painting a portrait of Singh that goes far beyond his symbolic value.

The Patient Assassin is not a whodunit. We know who the killer is before we finish reading the preface. Nonetheless, it’s a suspenseful work of historical detection. Like a le Carré novel, it has a complex, weblike structure that creates a nuanced and compelling account of the massacre and its fallout. As a result, Anand rescues Singh from his pigeonhole, revealing a flawed man driven by anger, guilt and grief. 

Local cowboys scoffed when three mysterious riders arrived at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Arena in 1908. Their spurs were smaller than the local cowboys’ spurs, they carried rawhide lassos, and they adorned their wider-brimmed hats with—wait for it—flowers. However, these Hawaiian paniolos (cowboys) quickly silenced skeptics with their record-breaking times, leaving the crowd clamoring with questions.

In Aloha Rodeo, David Wolman and Julian Smith answer these questions with the same engaging, thorough prose that marks their solo work. On the surface, this is a book about the cowboy history of Hawaii, which was a new United States territory in the early 1900s. But this book also explores “identity, imperialism, and race” through the wild narratives of “ranchers, warriors, showmen, cowgirls, missionaries, immigrants, [and] royalty.” The narratives are so wild, in fact, that they often read like fiction. 

For example, the British first brought cattle to the Sandwich Islands (now the Hawaiian Islands) in 1793. They were a gift for the ruler, Kamehameha, who had been so displeased with the former British liaison that he had him bludgeoned to death. When it was showtime, the animals were brought out of the dark ship’s hold and into the tropical sunshine, where they were lowered into canoes with a giant pulley. The first two died of shock upon making it into the small boats. Did I mention they were longhorns? 

During this time, cattle were given free rein on the Big Island. They became so fierce that natives feared being gored or trampled. The first Hawaiian cowboys risked their lives to hunt these animals like wild game, subduing the beasts to bring peace to their island again. And as the authors suggest, if you interpret the cattle as a gift from imperialists meant to placate the natives, it gives the conquests of early paniolos even more dimension.

If your perception of cowboy culture has largely been shaped by Louis L’Amour, Lonesome Dove and John Wayne, hold onto your hats. Aloha Rodeo blows open a canyon of inclusionary cowboy history as wide as the Rio Grande. 

Admit it. When you hear “female spy,” you see images of Mata Hari beguiling her hapless victims into confiding secret enemy plans. But beauty so fatally powerful can easily transform from a spy’s best weapon into her greatest liability.

Instead, to be a successful female spy, a woman needs to be outwardly ordinary, a human chameleon who can hide in plain view. She must also have brains, courage and obstinacy. An ability to react quickly to unpleasant surprises—such as concealing incriminating evidence during a Gestapo arrest—is a plus. And the capacity to withstand torture without divulging any information about your spy ring is also desirable. These are the women of D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose’s gripping account of a generation of heroes.

In 1942, the Special Operations Executive, established by Winston Churchill to organize sabotage in German territory, decided to train women to operate behind enemy lines. This decision was not the result of early feminist principles but was instead born out of necessity, since men were rare commodities in wartime. It wasn’t a popular decision either: Colonel Maurice Buckmaster had to sell his idea directly to Churchill before he could get permission to implement it. But the accomplishments of these extraordinary “ordinary” women outweighed any skepticism. They organized, trained and armed thousands of resistance fighters who, on and after D-Day, were able to divert German attention away from the beaches in Normandy.

But their story is also marked by sadness and tragedy. Betrayed by the incompetence and arrogance of their commanders and fellow agents, scores of these women died under hideous circumstances. Others survived but were scarred. 

Their deeds may have been forgotten and their names obscured, but with her book, Rose has resurrected them, so that Odette Sansom, Andrée Borrel, Lise de Baissac and their sisters in arms will be remembered and honored.

Those who know the British Regency mostly from Georgette Heyer novels of heaving bosoms and Beau Brummel-ish heroes, or from Jane Austen’s witty satires on British manners, may be surprised to discover that the real Regency decade (1811 to 1820) was a period of intense political and social unrest, both nationally and internationally; of cavalier (in both senses) cruelty and contempt; of crushing taxes, tariffs and starvation versus extravagance; and of addiction (often prescribed and socially consumed), organized crime and pornography. It was also the setting for a golden age of London theater and art; for a fanatic explosion in sports both elegant and excruciatingly bloody; for literal Dickensian child poverty and criminal exploitation; and eventually for (almost redemptory) scientific and technical innovation.

Morrison’s well annotated and engagingly anecdotal book is a worthy romp through one of the most licentious, libertarian and obviously paradoxical decades in British history. Warfare, which was almost continual from Napoleon to New Orleans, required immense funding, while the Irish and other colonials were alternately taxed and denied relief. It was also a great era of expansion in India and the Middle East, which Lord Elgin saw as artistic reclamation and Lord Byron considered blatant looting.

Morrison reminds us that what literature classes refer to as the Romantic poets were also prominent social revolutionaries, writing against obvious profiteering Parliament laws and in favor of universal rights, suffrage and prison reform. It didn’t come cheap, either. Shelley was the near-victim of an attempted assassination, Byron lost his life fighting for Greek independence from Turkey, and newspaper publisher Leigh Hunt spent two years in jail for his scathing criticisms of the Prince Regent, which probably lead to his early death.

Morrison also offers a timely debunking of current misnomers. “Luddites” were not anti-tech—only anti the machines that stole their jobs during the industrial revolution. And despite the way Victorian has come to mean “prudish,” the 19th-century Brits (including those from the Regency era) endorsed sadomasochistic floggings at boys’ schools, incest (which was more socially acceptable than masturbation) and celebrity affairs. The Regent himself, and his brother and successor William IV, were famously dissolute and shared an almost hereditary weakness for actresses. William had at least 10 illegitimate children, most of whom survived with titles and a few honors, but of course, they could not inherit the throne. And thus, the brothers’ niece Victoria ushered in Britain’s next era.