Greg Grandin

Latest Book

America, América

A New History of the New World

Just published on April 22, 2025

A New York Times Bestseller

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.

Penguin

“An extraordinarily ambitious book . . . America, América reads at times as the historical equivalent of the great epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez.”
Daniel Geary, The Mark Pigott Professor in U.S. History, Trinity College, for The Irish Times

“Historian Greg Grandin’s audacious new book . . . will, for many readers, upend conceptions of the hemisphere . . . each day’s headlines further confirm the deep-rooted patterns that his brilliant and urgently needed history traces . . . America, América pursues its course across the centuries with verve, superb pacing, and impressive delicacy of touch.”
Esther Allen, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A sweeping, magisterial analysis of 300 years of conflicting geopolitical understandings of sovereignty that have defined Anglo-American and Spanish American relations . . . The relevance of this history cannot be overemphasized.”
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, The Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History, University of Texas, for Science

“Written with great flair and imagination, scattered with scintillating turns of phrase and pervaded with a sense of barely suppressed indignation.”
Anthony Pagden, University of California, Los Angeles, for The Literary Review

“Grandin has written a stirring new book… America, América shows how over the course of five centuries, America in the north and America in the south have shaped each other through war, conquest, competition and cooperation. Their intercontinental relationship has had implications for not only the Western Hemisphere but also the modern world . . . Grandin is such a terrific writer and perceptive historian that I was swept along by his enthralling narrative.”
The New York Times

Other Books

Empire’s Workshop

Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

“Fifteen years since its original publication, historian Greg Grandin has revised and reissued his now classic 2006 book, Empire’s Workshop. Having dedicated the intervening years to studying US imperial power, Grandin’s razor-sharp insight into the structural contradictions of the US imperialist project make this work required reading.”
Jacobin

“Greg Grandin’s examination of America’s empire in Latin America provides a critical view―squarely opposing any notion that the United States has advanced toleration, the rule of law, or democracy in its imperial realm . . . He addresses empire in terms of its dominated periphery and makes important contributions by presenting imperial and domestic policies as inseparable realms.”
Emily S. Rosenberg

“Fifteen years since its original publication, historian Greg Grandin has revised and reissued his now classic 2006 book, Empire’s Workshop. Having dedicated the intervening years to studying US imperial power, Grandin’s razor-sharp insight into the structural contradictions of the US imperialist project make this work required reading.”
Jacobin

“Greg Grandin’s examination of America’s empire in Latin America provides a critical view―squarely opposing any notion that the United States has advanced toleration, the rule of law, or democracy in its imperial realm . . . He addresses empire in terms of its dominated periphery and makes important contributions by presenting imperial and domestic policies as inseparable realms.”
Emily S. Rosenberg

“Read Empire’s Workshop and the whole disastrous Bush adventure in Iraq suddenly appears as the logical continuation of a century of U.S. intervention in that sad laboratory called Latin America.”
Ariel Dorfman

“Grandin has always been a brilliant historian; now he uses his detective skills in a book that is absolutely crucial to understanding our present.”
Naomi Klein
The End of the Myth

From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history—from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016.

“As bracing an analysis of post-2016 America as any I have read. Grandin’s book is so sharply argued, so rooted in careful historical detail, so morally clear, that it makes a strong claim to be the most essential political text yet to emerge from the shock of Trump’s election.”
Los Angeles Review of Books

“One of our most gifted writers and thinkers, Greg Grandin has given us a history of the United States like none other. It is a history written from our ever-shifting and expanding borders, a history of our quest to escape history, and a history of how that history has now caught up with us. The End of the Myth bubbles with ideas, insights, and challenges (and often with wry humor), offering essential perspective on our current condition.”
Steven Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet

“As bracing an analysis of post-2016 America as any I have read. Grandin’s book is so sharply argued, so rooted in careful historical detail, so morally clear, that it makes a strong claim to be the most essential political text yet to emerge from the shock of Trump’s election.”
Los Angeles Review of Books

“One of our most gifted writers and thinkers, Greg Grandin has given us a history of the United States like none other. It is a history written from our ever-shifting and expanding borders, a history of our quest to escape history, and a history of how that history has now caught up with us. The End of the Myth bubbles with ideas, insights, and challenges (and often with wry humor), offering essential perspective on our current condition.”
Steven Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet

“A great book. Brilliant, erudite, and above all else fresh, The End of Myth offers a genuinely new, compelling, and historically informed framework for understanding the madness of this political moment.”
Chris Hayes, author of A Colony in a Nation

“Many historians have recounted the legend-encrusted saga of American expansionism. Written with insight, passion, and uncompromising moral clarity, The End of the Myth renders all prior interpretations obsolete. The Age of Trump needs history that is both bold and subversive. On both counts, Greg Grandin delivers.”
Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Twilight of the American Century

“‘If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists,’ Cecil Rhodes once said. The End of the Myth trenchantly relates how an American dream of expansion and growth managed to contain domestic disaffection, and reveals the perils of a shattered imperial fantasy. Describing the consequences of an exhausted imperialism, Grandin illuminates, like few have, our treacherous present. A tremendous book.”
Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger

“What happens when expansion is no longer viable as a promise for the nation’s future and as a fix for its problems? Greg Grandin’s analysis of our current political moment is historical, erudite, provocative, and beautifully written.”
Mae Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

“A compelling examination of the American history of frontiers, by one of the most innovative and imaginative historians in any field. Troubling but inspiring, this is intellectual history for a broad readership; its sweep and force are stunning. Grandin brilliantly gives our current conditions of aggression, nostalgia, and racism deep historical grounding for the benefit of all who will listen.”
David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“This book is an extraordinarily incisive look at the myths that Americans have used to evade our real situation and the responsibilities we might have to one another as members of a democracy. It is also a rich, illuminating, and unsettling retelling of American history as the story of these evasions and the harm they have done—and the countercurrents we might still hope to draw on to build a deeper and better democracy.”
Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene
Kissinger’s Shadow

The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman

A new account of America’s most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America’s current imperial stance.

“Stirring . . . With an unassailable command of the facts –is it possible that he’s read every word ever written about his subject? — Grandin explains how Kissinger’s more baleful tactics have imprinted themselves on presidents and policymakers from both parties. . . . this is the sort of book that will always be timely, because it asks us to consider the link between today’s politics and tomorrow’s unanticipated consequences.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“A tour d’force. Greg Grandin exposes Kissinger’s vaunted approach to statecraft as little more than compulsive activism, typically relying on the threat or use of force, ignorant of history, devoid of any moral or ethical component, and discounting serious analysis in favor of intuition. Some realism. The field of Kissinger Studies begins here, with this book.”
Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War

“Stirring . . . With an unassailable command of the facts –is it possible that he’s read every word ever written about his subject? — Grandin explains how Kissinger’s more baleful tactics have imprinted themselves on presidents and policymakers from both parties. . . . this is the sort of book that will always be timely, because it asks us to consider the link between today’s politics and tomorrow’s unanticipated consequences.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“A tour d’force. Greg Grandin exposes Kissinger’s vaunted approach to statecraft as little more than compulsive activism, typically relying on the threat or use of force, ignorant of history, devoid of any moral or ethical component, and discounting serious analysis in favor of intuition. Some realism. The field of Kissinger Studies begins here, with this book.”
Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War

“A brilliant, original, carefully researched and wide-ranging book. It will change the way we understand the United States’ role in the world during the past half-century.”
Ben Kiernan, author of Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur

“Nearly forty years after leaving government Henry Kissinger still casts an improbably vast shadow: puppet master of detente, shuttle diplomatist as canny magician, statesman as superstar. But as Greg Grandin shows in his absorbing tour de force, Kissinger casts a much more immediate — and malign — shadow over the country’s foreign policy, one in which acts of overwhelming violence are deemed vital to American “leadership” and “credibility.” Hovering over the Iraq War, no less than over Vietnam, is the spirit of Henry Kissinger. Grandin, with scrupulous research and impassioned prose, lets us see it. An essential and most timely book.”
Mark Danner, author of Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War

“Greg Grandin’s brilliant account of Kissinger does far more than just limn the criminality of the man. He strips Kissinger’s vaunted realism to the bone revealing a skeleton of romantic American exceptionalism and a loving embrace of the will to power for power’s sake. Kissinger’s Shadow reveals the in-built denial mechanism of our all-pervasive national security state, which will never let past catastrophe get in the way of bold action in the future.”
Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars
The Empire of Necessity

Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World

The story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America’s struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond.

“The Empire of Necessity is scholarship at its best. Greg Grandin’s deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant and necessary.”
Toni Morrison

“In this multifaceted masterpiece, Greg Grandin excavates the relentlessly fascinating history of a slave revolt to mine the enduring dilemmas of politics and identity in a New World where the Age of Freedom was also the Age of Slavery. This is that rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely.”
Philip Gourevitch, co-author of the The Ballad of Abu Ghraib

“The Empire of Necessity is scholarship at its best. Greg Grandin’s deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant and necessary.”
Toni Morrison

“In this multifaceted masterpiece, Greg Grandin excavates the relentlessly fascinating history of a slave revolt to mine the enduring dilemmas of politics and identity in a New World where the Age of Freedom was also the Age of Slavery. This is that rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely.”
Philip Gourevitch, co-author of the The Ballad of Abu Ghraib

“Greg Grandin has done it again. Starting with a single dramatic encounter in the South Pacific he has shown us an entire world: of multiple continents, terrible bondage and the dream of freedom. This is also a story of how one episode changed the lives of a sea captain and a great writer from the other end of the earth. An extraordinary tale, beautifully told.”
Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“Rooted in an event known primarily through the genius of Herman Melville’s transcendent Benito Cereno, The Empire of Necessity is a stunning work of research done all over the rims of two oceans, as well as beautiful, withering storytelling. This harrowing story of Muslim Africans trekking across South America, and ultimately a unique window on to the nature of the slave trade, the maritime worlds of the early nineteenth century, the lives lived in-between slavery and freedom all over the Americas, and even the ocean-inspired imagination of Melville. Grandin is a master of grand history with new insights.”
David W. Blight, author of A Slave No More.

“Greg Grandin is one of the best of a new generation of historians who have rediscovered the art of writing for both serious scholars and general readers. This may be his best book yet. The Empire of Necessity is a work of astonishing power, eloquence and suspense—a genuine tour de force.”
Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
Fordlandia

The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City

“Grandin takes full command of a complicated narrative with numerous threads, and the story spills out in precisely the right tone—about midway between Joseph Conrad and Evelyn Waugh.”
The American Scholar

Picked by TLS‘s Sir Ferdinand Mount as best book of 2010: “alive to every nuance of the story but is sparing with the condescension of posterity . . . .”
Sir Ferdinand Mount

“Grandin takes full command of a complicated narrative with numerous threads, and the story spills out in precisely the right tone—about midway between Joseph Conrad and Evelyn Waugh.”
The American Scholar

Picked by TLS‘s Sir Ferdinand Mount as best book of 2010: “alive to every nuance of the story but is sparing with the condescension of posterity . . . .”
Sir Ferdinand Mount

One of the BBC’s Ten Best Driving Books of 2010 : “The thinking man’s car book. . . . “

Published in Brazil as Fordlândia: Ascensão e queda da cidade esquecida and called “um grande livro ” by country’s leading columnist.
Elio Gaspari

“A “Best book of 2010” (paperback), NPR’s”
The Takeaway
The Last Colonial Massacre

Latin America in the Cold War

“This remarkable and extremely well-written work is about more than the dark history of Guatemala and the cold war in Latin America. It is about how common people discover politics. It is about the roots of democracy and those of genocide. It is about the hopes and defeats of the twentieth-century left. I could not put this book down.”
Eric Hobsbawm

“This remarkable recounting of popular resistance and Cold War terror in Guatemala weaves biography and history, ideology and politics, into a coherent narrative of the local embedded in the global. Greg Grandin has written a book that is moving and compelling.”
Mahmood Mamdani

“This remarkable and extremely well-written work is about more than the dark history of Guatemala and the cold war in Latin America. It is about how common people discover politics. It is about the roots of democracy and those of genocide. It is about the hopes and defeats of the twentieth-century left. I could not put this book down.”
Eric Hobsbawm

“This remarkable recounting of popular resistance and Cold War terror in Guatemala weaves biography and history, ideology and politics, into a coherent narrative of the local embedded in the global. Greg Grandin has written a book that is moving and compelling.”
Mahmood Mamdani
The Blood of Guatemala

A History of Race and Nation

Winner, 2001 Bryce Wood Award, Latin American Studies Association

“Brilliant, bold, and beautifully written from the first page to the last, The Blood of Guatemala convincingly challenges previous interpretations of the histories of ethnicity, commmunity, state, nation, and nationalism in Guatemala. Greg Grandin has skillfully united the disciplines of history and anthropology; he is part of a new generation of committed, sophisticated, and clearheaded intellectuals.”
Deborah Levenson, Boston College

“A remarkable tour de force,”
Kenneth Maxwell, Foreign Affairs

“Brilliant, bold, and beautifully written from the first page to the last, The Blood of Guatemala convincingly challenges previous interpretations of the histories of ethnicity, commmunity, state, nation, and nationalism in Guatemala. Greg Grandin has skillfully united the disciplines of history and anthropology; he is part of a new generation of committed, sophisticated, and clearheaded intellectuals.”
Deborah Levenson, Boston College

“A remarkable tour de force,”
Kenneth Maxwell, Foreign Affairs

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Latest Book

A New York Times Bestseller

Other Books