The Trade Division publishes a distinguished list of history titles in both hardcover and paperback, including Mariner Books. Prestigious authors include Pulitzer Prize–winner Garry Wills, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Stephen W. Sears, James Carroll, John Guy, Jim Hirsch, and Winston Churchill. For more nonfiction highlights, please browse our Bestsellers and Recent Catalogs.

Henry Adams and the Making of America
by Garry Wills

Prisoner of the Vatican:  The Popes, the Kings, and Garibaldi's Rebels in the Struggle to Rule Modern Italy
by David I. Kertzer

One of the greatest historians of our time offers a surprising reappraisal of the greatest historian of the nineteenth century.

"Garry Wills brings a lucid style, imaginative analysis, and the talent for historical elucidation that won him the Pulitzer Prize for Lincoln at Gettysburg. He has cogently made the case for Adams as a masterly diplomatic, military, and financial historian, and I unreservedly recommend this book." — New York Times Book Review

Taking advantage of a wealth of secret documents long buried in the Vatican archives, Prisoner of the Vatican tells the surprising story of how the pope tried to have the new Italian state overthrown. It also tells for the first time of the secret plans made under Pius IX and his successor, Leo XIII, to have the pope and the cardinals of the Curia flee Rome and Italy altogether, not to return until they were restored to power.

"This book is a gift to everyone who welcomes the emergence of buried history, and a boon to anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of the wonderful, tenuously unified place called modern Italy." — Tracy Kidder

The Worst Hard Time:  The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
by Timothy Egan

Queen of Scots:  The True Life of Mary Stuart
by John Guy

In The Worst Hard Time, award-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan gives readers a brilliant, finely textured, character-driven narrative that not only captures the full drama of the "worst weather event" in U.S. history but, as only great history can, also captures the very voice of the times, its grit, pathos, and abiding heroism.

"As one who, as a young reporter, survived and reported on the great Dust Bowl disaster, I recommend this book as a dramatic, exciting, and accurate account of that incredible and deadly phenomenon. This is can't-put-it-down history." — Walter Cronkite

Eminent British historian John Guy has unearthed a trove of primary source material that upends the popular notion of Mary Queen of Scots as a femme fatale and establishes her as the intellectual and political equal of Elizabeth I.

"One of the most distinguised scholars of the Tudor period . . . With all the different versions fully displayed, the reader for the first time can enjoy the poignant drama of Mary's life and the excitement of assessing all the forensic evidence . . . Guy's scholarly biography, as enthralling as a detective story, provides a wider vision of Tudor history and shows with stunning clarity how the historical narrative was shaped." — Gerald Kilroy, New York Times