Campbell, Olivia. Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History. Park Row. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9780778333388. 352p. $32.99. HISTORY

Bestselling author and journalist Campbell (Women in White Coats) returns with the story of four German women physicists during World War II. When the Nazis took over Germany, they took over science too. In heroic and harrowing ways, the brilliant scientists Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen escaped the Nazis in order to survive and continue their revolutionary work.

Cowley, Robert. The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War. Random. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781400068524. 656p. $38. HISTORY

Cowley, founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, writes about the first Battle of Ypres, which took place during World War I. Here four armies met: the Germans, the British, the Belgians, and the French. Winston Churchill, a young Adolf Hitler, and the last warrior king of Europe were all involved in a battle that changed the nature of war.

Cuadros, Alex. When We Sold God’s Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon. Grand Central. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781538701508. 352p. $32. HISTORY

Journalist Cuadros (Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country) spent six years in Brazil reporting this story of modern-day colonialism. In the 1960s, the rainforest home of the Cinta Larga tribe was invaded by prospectors, loggers, and ranchers seeking resources and wealth. Cuadros explains what happened and the ruin and change it brought and reflects on the fallout for individuals and Brazil as a whole.

Gabriele, Matthew & David M. Perry. Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9780063336674. 336p. $32. HISTORY

Two medieval scholars, one at Virginia Tech and one at the University of Minnesota, write about the ninth-century war that took place in Europe only a few generations after Charlemagne’s rule. The Carolingian Civil War set families against each other and was bloody and protracted as it raged for years, destabilizing society and drawing the lines that would define modern Europe.

Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs. Basic. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781541606166. 528p. $35. HISTORY

Award-winning Hasegawa (professor emeritus in history at the University of California, Santa Barbara) offers a new history of Tsar Nicholas II, positing that Nicholas’s mismanagement of the monarchy and refusal to compromise on reform led to his assassination and the rise of the Soviet Union.

Haywood, John. Ocean: A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus. Pegasus. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781639367665. 544p. $35. HISTORY

Historian Haywood (Penguin Atlas of Vikings) writes a history of the Atlantic Ocean that ranges from 200 million years ago to the 15th century. Primarily a history of maritime technologies, the book also considers geography, geology, and even mythology as it sketches the early seafaring history of the nations that rim the Atlantic seaboard.

Mulley, Clare. Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter. Pegasus. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781639367627. 400p. $29.95. HISTORY

Mulley, the award-winning author of The Woman Who Saved the Children, writes about Elzbieta Zawacka, the World War II resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. Among her many heroic feats, she helped to lead the Warsaw Uprising and liberate Poland—only to later be imprisoned and tortured by the Soviet-backed Communist government, which also suppressed her story.

Reeder, Lydia. The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women’s Lives Forever. St. Martin’s Griffin. Dec. 2024. ISBN 9781250284457. 336p. $30. HISTORY

Reeder (author of the LJ-starred Dust Bowl Girls) writes a history of the pioneering Mary Putnam Jacobi. This daughter of publisher George Palmer Putnam attended the Sorbonne medical school and conducted groundbreaking research in women’s health, smashing the patriarchy and confronting sexism in medicine and its Victorian-era prejudices.