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Nonfiction books on topics of law, racial justice and culture were among those recently recommended by New York Times critics. Here, some of their favorites.

■ ‘ Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation’ by Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann served as one of Robert Mueller’s top lawyers in the special counsel’s investigation into the 2016 election. He knows that his new memoir won’t destroy “the machinery of information that separates fact from fiction,” but he wants to enter his experience into the historical record. “I have to imagine that this book will probably strike the famously tightlipped Mueller as an act of betrayal,” the Times critic Jennifer Szalai wrote in her review. “Weissmann’s portrait of his boss is admiring, affectionate and utterly devastating.”

■ ‘ To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes’ Edited by Ilisa Barbash, Molly Rogers and Deborah Willis. Fifteen images tucked away at Harvard, widely believed to be the first photographs of enslaved human beings, have been at the center of urgent debates about photography ever since they were rediscovered in 1976. This book convenes a group of scholars of slavery, American history, memory, photography and science, with the aim of telling “more fully the complex story of the people in these iconic images.” The book raised a lot of questions for the Times critic Parul Sehgal: “Is there a correct way to regard these images? Should one view them, or any coerced image, at all? To whom do they belong? Do they quicken or numb the conscience?”

■ ‘ Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy’ by Talia Lavin. To write this book, which expressly melds reportage with activism, Talia Lavin created fake identities and interacted with far- right communities online, including dating sites for white supremacists and forums for people hoping to incite a race war. Her goal was to shine light on hatred that she says flourishes when it’s allowed to take cover in the shadows. “One of the marvels of this furious book is how insolent and funny Lavin is,” the Times critic Jennifer Szalai wrote in her review. “She refuses to soft- pedal the monstrous views she encounters, and she clearly takes pleasure in cutting them down to size.”

■ ‘ What Becomes a Legend Most: A Biography of Richard Avedon’ by Philip Gefter. Richard Avedon’s first fashion photograph appeared in Harper’s Bazaar in 1944, when he was 21, and he was still shooting for The New Yorker at the time of his death 60 years later. “He knew everyone and photographed everyone, and part of the pleasure of this biography lies in watching life’s rich pageant pass by,” the Times critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review, calling the book “wise and ebullient.” Gefter lingers over photo sessions with subjects like Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin and James Baldwin, and makes the case for Avedon as one of the 20th century’s most consequential artists.