I'm very interested in the history of Formula One and hope to one day publish a book that would be targeted towards the general public to make them more interested in the sport. At the library in my university, I noticed that many books include a bibliography and references / footnotes while some do not. Is a bibliography essential when writing a book because of reliability and plagarism issues?
I’m a longtime bookseller, now a freelance nonfiction editor and indexer working for both publishers and independent authors.
Yes, popular history books for adults do include indexes and bibliographies or reference lists. An introductory book might also include a list of additional resources for the interested reader.
You certainly should cite any sources where you have located or verified information. If you didn’t come up with it on your own, or directly collect it in a personal interview, you must cite or you risk being busted for plagiarism.
Here’s an instance of a well-known popular historian failing to correctly use another author’s text, and getting busted for plagiarism.
Finally, people who like to read a lot of nonfiction generally like and want and use that back matter! I had a dear regular customer in my bookstore who refused to buy a nonfiction book without a bibliography or reference list, because if he was interested in a topic he used the bib to go find more books.