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Nonfiction book that had facts that shocked you (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world to c/books@lemmy.ml

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I've taken a break from nonfiction for a while (finished lotr and read a whole bunch of Stephen king). Now I want to go back to reading nonfiction, but I want something that will pull me in another world of facts I didn't know about. Be it political, sociology.... anything really. I don't know if "facts" is the word I'm looking for here (English is my second language). Can I say "discoveries"? Things you've found through the book that shocked you? Hope that makes sense.
Thanks in advance

Edit: Thank you all for the great suggestions. I've saved this post and will go through the list. Much, much appreciated 🫶🏽

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[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My go to reference for historical non-fiction is Arms Germs and Steel. The book sets out to answer the question “why did Spain discover and conquer South America and not the opposite?” The answer is the title, and so much more!

Greatly written, very engaging, spans so many sections of history that left me fascinated - and I wasn’t a history nerd before this read.

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You'd certainly enjoy The Dawn of Everything then. The authors do make some cheeky academic jokes about parts of Diamond's work that they disagree with, but they also point out where they think he was right.

[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 2 points 3 weeks ago

And here it goes, on my reading list! Thanks for the suggestion!