
"Just One Thing": Microhistory Books and Beyond
By Walden Pond Books

"Just One Thing": Microhistory Books and Beyond
Gathered here are nonfiction books, popularly referred to as "microhistories", that you'll find shelved in bookstores and libraries in a multitude of different categories: history, science, biography, natural history, fashion, psychology, anthropology, sociology, technology. . .
What they all have in common is that they focus with an intense concentration on a single subject - on "just one thing". And, in doing so, these books cast a uniquely revealing and stimulating light on the culture, milieu, or era surrounding that subject. Subjects obsessed on range from beer to butter, from cadavers to corsets, from fonts to fur, from gems to ghosts, from paper to pirates, from rabies to rust, from testosterone to trees. . .
No matter what your favorite obsession, you'll most likely find an author on this list of rich curiosities who got there first!
- Please note that this list is not organized or ranked in any order - though books that must be back-ordered or pre-ordered tend to be at the bottom of the list.
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik
Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World
David Blistein and John H. Halpern
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
Nate Pedersen and Lydia Kang
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery,...
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the...
Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain
The Comic Book Story of Beer: The World's Favorite Beverage...
Aaron McConnell, Mike Smith, et al.
A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color...
Amy Butler Greenfield
Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over...
Don Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup
Please note that this list is not organized or ranked in any order - though books that must be back-ordered or pre-ordered tend to be at the bottom of the list.