
The American Pageant, initially published by Thomas A. Bailey in 1956, is an American high school history textbook often used for AP United States History, AICE American History as well as IB History of the Americas courses. Since Bailey's death in 1983, the book has been updated by historians David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, and it is now in its seventeenth edition.

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality is a book written by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises. It is an investigation into the psychological roots of the anti-capitalistic stance that is widespread in the general populations of the capitalist world. Mises suggests various reasons for this mentality, primarily his claim that free competition in the market economy allows for no excuses of one's failures.

The Art of Loving is a 1956 book by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm, which was published as part of the World Perspectives series edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen. In this work, Fromm develops his perspective on human nature from his earlier works, Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself – principles which he revisits in many of his other major works.

Bapu: Conversations and Correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi is an autobiographical description of F. Mary Barr's relationship and interactions with Mahatma Gandhi, whom she refers to as Bapu (father). Several of Gandhi's letters to the author, originally an English missionary in India, are included in full. The book was originally published in India in 1949. A revised edition was published in India in 1956. The book has been reviewed in several magazines, and discussed in other books.

Erica Pappritz was a German diplomat and civil servant. She co-wrote two books on social etiquette, Buch der Etikette and Etikette neu.

African-American author Richard Wright's book The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference is based on his impressions and analysis of the postcolonial Asian-African Conference, which was a gathering of representatives from 29 independent Asian and African countries, held in the city of Bandung, Indonesia, April 18–24, 1955. In addition to drawing on its author's experience as a reporter at the conference, The Color Curtain bases its analysis of the postcolonial world on Wright's interactions with several modern Indonesian writers and intellectuals. Since its publication in 1956, Wright's Indonesian travelogue has been a prominent first-hand account of the Bandung Conference.

Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) functionary during the Nazi era who was later convicted as a war criminal. He was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. He tested and implemented means to accelerate Hitler's plan to systematically exterminate the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. On the initiative of one of his subordinates, Karl Fritzsch, Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B, containing hydrogen cyanide, used in the gas chambers.

Commentaries on Living: From the notebooks of J. Krishnamurti is a series of books by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). It consists of 3 volumes, originally published in 1956, 1958 and 1960.

The Crack in the Picture Window is a 1956 book of social criticism by the American writer John Keats.

Defeat into Victory is an account of the retaking of Burma by Allied forces during the Second World War by the British Field Marshal William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim and published in the UK by Cassell in 1956. It was published in the United States as Defeat into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942–1945 by David McKay of New York in 1961.

First published in 1956, The Drunken Forest is an account of a six-month trip Gerald Durrell made with his wife Jacquie to South America in 1954.

Factor T is a book first published in 1956 written by the Polish writer, philosopher, filmmaker, composer and poet Stefan Themerson. It was originally written as a letter to Bertrand Russell.

The Forge and the Crucible is a 1956 book by the Romanian historian of religion Mircea Eliade. It traces historical rites and symbols associated with mines, smiths and other metal workers. An English translation by Stephen Corrin was published in 1962.
The Great Greek Encyclopedia is a general knowledge Greek-language encyclopedia, printed initially between 1926 and 1934.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the end of the Second Boer War (1902). It was started in 1937 and finally published 1956–58, delayed several times by war and his work on other texts. The volumes have been abridged into a single-volume, concise edition.

In Search of Wonder: Essays on Modern Science Fiction is a collection of critical essays by American writer Damon Knight. Most of the material in the original version of the book was originally published between 1952 and 1955 in various science fiction magazines including Infinity Science Fiction, Original SF Stories, and Future SF. The essays were highly influential, and contributed to Knight's stature as the foremost critic of science fiction of his generation. The book also constitutes an informal record of the "Boom Years" of science fiction from 1950-1955.

Initiation into Hermetics is the title of the English translation of Franz Bardon's first of three volumes concerning self-realization in line with the Hermetic tradition.

Inside the Atom is a popular science book by American author Isaac Asimov. The first edition of the book was published in 1956 by Abelard-Schuman. Revised editions were brought out in subsequent years.

Introduction to Solid State Physics is a classic condensed matter physics textbook originally written by American physicist Charles Kittel in 1953. The book has been highly influential and has seen widespread adoption; Marvin L. Cohen remarked in 2019 that Kittel's content choices in the original edition played a large role in defining the field of solid-state physics. It was also the first proper textbook covering this new field of physics. The book is published by John Wiley and Sons and, as of 2018, it is in its ninth edition and has been reprinted many times as well as translated into over a dozen languages, including Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. In some later editions, the eighteenth chapter, titled Nanostructures, was written by Paul McEuen.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956) is an autobiography by jazz singer Billie Holiday, which was co-authored by William Dufty. The book formed the basis of the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross.

The Last Grain Race is a 1956 book by Eric Newby, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque Moshulu during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade.

The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, or The Life of Oyasama, is the biography of Nakayama Miki published and authorized by Tenrikyo Church Headquarters. The Life of Oyasama is one of the supplemental texts to the Tenrikyo scriptures, along with The Doctrine of Tenrikyo and Anecdotes of Oyasama.

Lost Trails of the Transvaal is a history book written by TV Bulpin and published in 1956.

No Moon Tonight is a World War II autobiographical book by Halifax/Lancaster/Wellington bomber navigator Don Charlwood. Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1915 Charlwood joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1940 and was trained in Canada via the Empire Air Training Scheme. The book covers his training and his experiences as part of the RAF's Bomber Command, and his crew's ordeal completing their tour of operations. The book's title is derived from a line in the song Tristesse that was often played in the mess before a mission.

The Organization Man is a bestselling book by William H. Whyte, originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1956. It is considered one of the most influential books on management ever written.

Oriental Magic, by Idries Shah, is a study of magical practices in diverse cultures from Europe and Africa, through Asia to the Far East. Originally published in 1956 and still in print today, it was the first of this author’s 35 books. The work was launched with the encouragement of the anthropologist, Professor Louis Marin, who in his preface to the book stressed its “scholarly accuracy” and “real contribution to knowledge”.

The Outsider is a 1956 book by English writer Colin Wilson.

Over Seventy is an autobiographical work by P.G. Wodehouse, including a collection of articles originally from Punch magazine. It was first published in the United States on 3 May 1956 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York under the title America, I Like You, and in the United Kingdom, in a considerably expanded form, on October 11, 1957 by Herbert Jenkins, London, with the Over Seventy title and the subtitle An Autobiography with Digressions.

Panzer Battles is the English language title of Friedrich von Mellenthin's memoirs of his service as a staff officer in the Panzerwaffe of the German Army during World War II.

The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South is a non-fiction book about slavery published in 1956, by academic Kenneth M. Stampp of the University of California, Berkeley and other universities. The book describes and analyzes multiple facets of slavery in the American South from the 17th through the mid-19th century, including demographics, lives of slaves and slaveholders, the Southern economy and labor systems, the Northern and abolitionist response, slave trading, and political issues of the time.

Persian Inscriptions on Indian Monuments is a book written in Persian by Dr Ali Asghar Hekmat E Shirazi and published in 1956 and 1958 and 2013. new edition contains the Persian texts of more than 200 epigraphical inscriptions found on historical monuments in India, many of which are currently listed as national heritage sites or registered as UNESCO world heritage, published in Persian; an English edition is also being printed.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is a biography of the French anarchist written by George Woodcock and first published in 1956 by Macmillan.
The Poem of the Man-God is a multi-volume book of about five thousand pages on the life of Jesus Christ written by Maria Valtorta. The current editions of the book bear the title The Gospel as Revealed to Me.

The Power Elite is a 1956 book by sociologist C. Wright Mills, in which Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is a 1956 sociological book by Erving Goffman, in which the author uses the imagery of theatre in order to portray the importance of human social interaction; this approach would become known as Goffman's dramaturgical analysis.

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators, credited to then-Senator John F. Kennedy, but largely ghostwritten by Ted Sorensen. Kennedy is widely listed as the sole author and won the Pulitzer Prize for the work. The book profiles senators who defied the opinions of their party and constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions. It begins with a quote from Edmund Burke on the courage of the English statesman Charles James Fox, in his 1783 attack upon the tyranny of the East India Company in the House of Commons.

Russia Leaves the War (1956) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by George F. Kennan, which won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for History, the 1957 National Book Award for Nonfiction,the 1957 George Bancroft Prize, and the 1957 Francis Parkman Prize. The first of two volumes discussing Soviet-American relations from 1917–1920, it covers the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the departure of Russia from World War I in 1918. The second volume, The Decision to Intervene (1958) explores U.S. involvement in Siberia.

The Silver City is a 1956 memoir and historical piece written by Ion Idriess. It was based on Idriess' experiences of growing up in Broken Hill. It is also a general history of the city.

Soziologie is a 1956-1958 book by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973), German social philosopher, addressing the spatial and temporal influences on “human life, language and associations. To Rosenstock-Huessy, speech is central to sociology; sociology must recognize that speech is the concrete form of social reality.” Although it is Rosenstock-Huessy’s most systematic work. His Soziologie, has never been translated into English. It is a work that he revised periodically throughout his adult life. The book has two volumes, Band I: Die Übermacht der Räume and Band II: Die Vollzahl der Zeiten. Peter Leithart writes on "The Relevance of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy" and his methods:It’s not only the scope that impresses, but the integration. There is a passionate religious impulse behind everything he wrote, and it’s all made immediately, existentially real. But he moves rapidly from the large movements of history down to individual and family experience.

Studies in the Labour Theory of Value is a book about the labor theory of value by the economist Ronald L. Meek. The book has been praised by commentators.

The Third Eye is a book published by Secker & Warburg in November 1956. It was originally claimed that the book was written by a Tibetan monk named Lobsang Rampa. On investigation the author was found to be one Cyril Henry Hoskin (1910–1981), the son of a British plumber, who claimed that his body was occupied by the spirit of a Tibetan monk named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. The book is considered a hoax.

The Voice of Human Justice (ISBN 978-964-438-158-4) is an English translation of Sautu'l 'Adālati'l Insaniyah, a book written in Arabic by George Jordac, a Christian author from Lebanon. The book is a biography of Ali ibn Abi Talib. The contents of the book were drawn from the Nahj al-Balagha of Ali.

The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores, was written by Archie Carr and originally published in 1956. It is an account of Dr. Carr's travels around the Caribbean to study sea turtles and their migratory and behavior patterns, especially Kemp's ridley, a species about which little was known at the time. This book led to the formation of The Brotherhood of the Green Turtle, which later became the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, and is now known as the Sea Turtle Conservancy. It was awarded the 1957 John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, which is awarded annually by the American Museum of Natural History. The chapter entitled "The Black Beach", originally published in Mademoiselle, won a 1956 O. Henry Award.