It was the year of books named after years, and our favorite of those, and of any history book in 2005, was Charles C. Mann's eye-opening survey of new discoveries about the vibrant civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans, 1491. The other books include:

2. A Great Improvisation : Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Stacy Schiff

3. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch

4. History on Trial : My Day in Court with David Irving by Deborah E. Lipstadt

5. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815 by N. A. M. Rodger

6. 1776 by David McCullough

7. A History Of The World In Six Glasses by Tom Standage

8. Europeana: A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century (Eastern European Literature) by Patrik Ourednik, Gerald Turner (Translator)

9. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt

10. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation by Peter L. Bernstein