The moment entering a bookstore, you are always confused about which book to choose. The Wall Street Journal's books editors pick the best nonfiction from the past year.

Iron Curtain《铁幕》

By Anne Applebaum安妮·阿普勒鲍姆 (Doubleday)

   A decade ago, Anne Applebaum wrote a magisterial history of the Soviet prison-camp system. Now she shows how the Soviet Union imposed its totalitarian will upon Eastern European nations ravaged by World War II. It was an age of forced migrations and state suspicion of every activity. Our reviewer called this an 'epic but intimate history' of a region whose troubles barely lessened with the cessation of war.

The Endgame《收官》

By Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor

迈克尔·R·戈登和伯纳德·E·特雷纳 (Pantheon)

   Some 1.5 million Americans fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Their story is told in monumental detail in 'The Endgame,' which despite its title is a full narrative-from early victories to civil war, the success of the surge and the American withdrawal. The authors, Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, had access to the highest levels of military and civilian command, and our reviewer judged the book 'likely to stand for decades as the definitive account of the Iraq war.'

The Founders and Finance《奠基人与财经》

By Thomas McCraw托马斯·麦克劳 (Harvard)

   Three immigrants put the early Republic on sound economic footing: Robert Morris (from Liverpool), Alexander Hamilton (from St. Croix) and Albert Gallatin (from Switzerland). Their very rootlessness, in Thomas McCraw's telling, helped them see the value of strong money, credit and banks at a time when the political class was dominated by a landed aristocracy. Each year is replete with books about the Founders; Mr. McCraw's is the rare one that, as our reviewer put it, has 'hit on something new.'