The best nonfiction books of 2024

Photo: Bloomberg

The past year was a marvelous one for those who read serious nonfiction. As has been my tradition, I present (in random order) a baker's dozen of the best nonfiction of 2024, with an emphasis on books that have taught me things I didn't know. I end with my pick for the best book of the year.

The invention of prehistory: Empire, violence, and our obsession with human origins by Stefano Geroulanos

Was the excitement over prehistory and the "savage" just a cloak for colonialist oppression? This was, here and there, a bit polemical for my taste, but it was highly engaging and, for the most part, persuasive.

Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River raid, and Black freedom during the civil war by Edda L Fields-Black

Although Tubman has become an icon of the American narrative, we pay insufficient attention to her remarkable skill as military leader and strategist. This book helps remedy that deficit.

The right to oblivion: Privacy and the good life by Lowry Pressly

Perhaps instead of our right to be left alone, we should conceptualise privacy as our right to be unobserved, unseen, untracked, exposing to the world only that which we choose to expose; we should be free, in short, to live in oblivion, a kind of hiding, where the world does not come questioning, pursuing, demanding, recording. (Pressly isn't sure how to fix it, but a good start might be getting rid of those traffic cameras!)

Silk: A world history by Aarathi Prasad

I'm a bit surprised that this delightful tour through history, geography, archaeology and entomology hasn't received more attention. It even includes some chills, such as when the silk gown worn by a mummy sealed up for two millennia, upon contact with the air when her tomb is opened, immediately unravels and disappears.

Naples 1925: Adorno, Benjamin, and the summer that made critical theory by Martin Mittelmeier (translated by Shelley Frisch)

Perhaps a little forced in places, for the Frankfurt School or its equivalent was bound to come into existence one way or another. But this bright, clever portrait of a handful of young theorists meeting in one remarkable summer in one remarkable city taught me a great deal about how it did come into existence.

Life as no one knows it: The physics of life's emergence by Sara Imari Walker

Imagine that the vast calculating machine we call the universe constantly assembles "objects" of various levels of complexity, all full of information.  Might what we call life be simply a label for an object created by a sufficient number of steps? For the past few years, scientists interested in the origins of life have been arguing vehemently over "assembly" theory. Walker, a physicist and astrobiologist, and one of the field's founders, has crafted a provocative and informative defense.

Four points of the compass: The unexpected history of direction by Jerry Brotton

A fine compendium of just what the title promises, from the Mesoamericans who measured direction along three axes rather than two, to the European elites who seized upon east, west, north and south to designate who was civilized and who not, to NASA's panicked inversion of the "Blue Marble" photograph prior to release (the original image had the South Pole at the top). An intriguing account, too, of Mercator's projection, which, apparently, was not related to assumptions about white supremacy.

The notebook: A history of thinking on paper by Roland Allen

As this eclectic account reminds us, the story of the human race has been marked by the physical act of writing. Language and religion, war and peace, arts and sciences, all have been influenced by the process of making notes. If we change that, Allen worries, we change ourselves – and not necessarily for the better.

Why machines learn: The elegant math behind modern AI by Anil Ananthaswamy

Yes, much of the math is hard, and my undergraduate training in differential equations and linear algebra was too long ago to be much help. Yet the volume fascinates, both because of the many startling images (a penguin as a point in five-dimensional space!) and because of the way the author combines history and math, by showing us how one seemingly small discovery led to the next, until we reach today, when a neural net trained on images of wooden chairs quickly figures out that "wood" has nothing to do with "chair." (John Hopfield, who just won the Nobel Prize in physics for his indispensable contributions to AI, figures prominently.)

The rebel's clinic: The revolutionary lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz

One cannot understand the attraction of today's intellectuals to liberation movements without understanding the strange genius of Fanon, whose incisive studies of the colonised mind continue to influence scholars and revolutionaries alike. I'm long over my youthful love affair with Fanonist thought, but my awe for his oeuvre is no less. As fine a one-volume introduction to his remarkable life and work as we're likely to find.

Savings and trust: The rise and betrayal of the Freedman's Bank by Justene Hill Edwards

Recent years have seen surging scholarly interest in the 1874 collapse of the Freedman's Bank, an event that cost many of those liberated from enslavement their savings. Edwards neatly and persuasively summarizes the evidence for the proposition that the principal cause was the determination of the board to make the bank "a lending powerhouse," together with self-dealing by directors who found the pot of money irresistible.

The roads to Rome: A history of imperial expansion by Catherine Fletcher

The Roman Empire, the author tells us, built 100,000 kilometers of their famous roads — for trade, for the carrying of messages, and of course for the rapid movement of the ubiquitous legions. Ever since, the roads have excited explorers, archaeologists and, intriguingly, dictators, who have cast their eyes at imperial Rome and decided that rapid construction of roads is crucial to staying in power.

Cosmic connections: Poetry in the age of disenchantment by Charles Taylor

The great philosopher proposes that our uncommon divisions might be overcome by learning to experience poetry (particularly the Romantics) in the "interspace" between ourselves and the world. Beautifully written, as Taylor's work always is, but tinged with a wistful quality that suggests he thinks liberal democracy may be over.

Finally, the best nonfiction book of 2024, and one of the most important I've read in many years:

Nuclear war: A scenario by Annie Jacobsen

A forceful, sobering reminder of the existential risk hanging over our heads. Anyone in public life who isn't thinking seriously about the six minutes the president has to decide to launch upon learning that someone else appears to have launched isn't thinking seriously. In between history and the long-standing concerns of experts, Jacobsen embeds her warning in what she calls a "scenario" — essentially a chilling pre-apocalyptic novel of a possible near future.

And as 2024 draws to a close, might I wish you peace, joy, and love in the year to come — and lots of happy reading!

Stephen L Carter. Sketch: TBS

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to the US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement.