The 21st century began innocently enough, with fears of a global Y2K scare that quickly fizzled out. In little time, the new millennium, starting with the shock of the 9/11 attacks, grew ominously dark. More devastation and horrors followed: the United States’ costly, deadly, and deceitful invasion of Iraq; America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; and a conflict that is still being waged over the Gaza Strip, now lying largely in ruins.

Closer to home, countless tragedies and crises have marked the quarter century, from mass shootings to the Great Recession of 2008. History was also made: The U.S. elected its first Black president and twice chose as its leader a real estate developer and former reality TV host who’d never before held elected office.

Chronicling these momentous events were numerous books that give us a better understanding of our times. Several are on Kirkus’ list of the best 100 nonfiction books of the century. Among them is Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, published in 2006. The book is a commanding overview of the terrorist attacks that set off epochal changes felt around the world.

Some authors soberly documented what they see as a decline of America over the past several decades. They include George Packer, author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (2013), and Rebecca Solnit, winner of the Kirkus Prize for Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays) (2018). Several books on the list skillfully and compassionately address specific problems plaguing the country, such as increasing poverty and corporate greed, as in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016), and Beth Macy’s Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America (2018). The ongoing effects of systemic racism are powerfully detailed in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014), and Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America (2021).

Immigration, a focus of political platforms across the country, is taken up in a host of books that personalize the ordeals of people trying to make it in this country. A few notable titles are Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (2004), Reyna Grande’s A Dream Called Home: A Memoir (2018), and Javier Zamora’s Solito: A Memoir (2022).

Not all is grim. We’re grateful, too, for all the books that have been a joy to read. Some of our favorites are David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003), Andre Agassi’s Open: An Autobiography (2009), Patti Smith’s Just Kids (2010), Nora Ephron’s The Most of Nora Ephron (2013), Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir (2014), and Ed Yong’s An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022). Here’s to many more such works over the next 25 years.

John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.