When the Best Books Aren’t
By my own unscientific but conservative estimate, 200,000 history books have been published in 2023. I have read nine of them. I doubt that any publication or organization has reviewed even 500, or 0.25 percent of the total. That leaves a lot of unexamined books whose merits are unknown.
That’s why I am puzzled when I see lists of the best history books of the year. How could anyone know? It’s like visiting only a dozen North American restaurants and proclaiming three of them the best on the continent. Yet these numerical challenges don’t stop people at Smithsonian Magazine, Tertulia, the Wolfson History Prize, Amazon, Waterstones, The Times of London, the Telegraph, and many others from authoritatively crowning their picks as the year’s best.
I see the helpfulness of these lists. They direct readers to good history books. Maybe a term other than “best” is needed. I do not object to lists of “notable,” “favorite,” “fascinating,” or “great” history books of the year. You can find such lists if you look for them. Most of all, I would appreciate a list of entertaining history books.
I’m left wondering about the scores of thousands of history books each year that few people notice and nobody reviews. There are gems among their multitudinous numbers. What becomes of them?
