At 467 pages of small-font writing, The Earth is Weeping is no quick read. Nor should it be. The author, historian and recently retired U.S. diplomat Peter Cozzens, has much ground to cover charting the decline of Native American tribes in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. Cover it he does, in great detail.

In Pax Romana, Adrian Goldsworthy takes us inside the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire to show us how Rome seized territory, held territory, and then kept the peace within its vast borders.

Goldsworthy begins with the Roman army under the republic. From the start, a strong sense of civic purpose gave soldiers the ideological grounding for hard, expansionist battles. Rome’s drive was not unusual, but its martial dominance surely was. “There is no doubt that the Republic was an aggressive imperial power, but as soon as we look more closely at contemporary states it becomes obvious that this was equally true of almost every other kingdom, state or people.” Throughout Roman history, peace rested more on Rome’s potential for massive retribution and its empowerment of regional allies than in vast garrisons stationed in the far reaches of its territory. “Fear, and a sense that Roman rule was usually tolerable even if it was more or less oppressive, may well have convinced most provincials against rebellion.”

Twilight Warriors explains how the U.S. national security apparatus has adapted to fight post-9/11 terrorism. The book begins in 2002 with an examination of interrogation strategies employed against al Qaeda officers captured in Afghanistan. There were two conflicting approaches. The author, journalist James Kitfield, asserts that, while FBI teams built relationships with their detainees and then carefully broke down their resistance to interrogation to gather valuable intelligence, the CIA took a more aggressive and, he argues, unproductive approach.

Hero of the Empire tells the story of Winston Churchill during the Second Boer War in South Africa. We begin with the author’s introduction to Churchill’s service as a British army officer fighting tribal warriors in the North-West Frontier of British India. Churchill, then in his early 20’s, was determined to earn a reputation for heroism and acted courageously in that pursuit. He was nearly killed on a number of occasions, but felt that fate was on his side. “I do not believe the Gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending,” he wrote after one hairy battle. Churchill would eventually be vindicated in that belief, but his exploits in British India were insufficient to vaunt him to public attention. He needed to find another fray to fight in.

After being defeated in an 1899 British parliamentary election, Churchill decided on a different route to purpose and power. When the Second Boer War began in October 1899, Churchill sensed it was his moment to strike.

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s First World War history, Somme: Into the Breach is at once easy and hard to read. Easy, thanks to Montefiore’s deep knowledge and exceptional writing. Hard, because it records what happened between July 1 and November 18 1916 in northern France.

As the battle began, British Army commanders were optimistic. Having successfully detonated explosives in tunnels beneath German strongpoints, commanders believed they had seized the early imitative. (Consider the vast explosion caught on film at a German position at the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt.) But success was momentary. Confusion between British Army headquarters and front line battalions meant that confusion reigned on the first day.

William Goetzmann’s Money Changes Everything is a thorough look at finance and world history, a 5,000-year journey that demonstrates the pivotal role of free market capitalism in building nations and serving human interests.