Jimellow

I love reading, but am not a big fan of getting bogged down in history. Gerald Ford died tonight, and that ultimately led me to the White House website, where I started reading various biographies of past presidents. That ultimately led to a desire to read about Ameria's past/history in a way that is enjoyable.

My dad has recommended That Dark and Bloody River by Alan Eckert, and on that note, I wanted to start a thread that would hopefully allow others to contribute suggestions of books that dealt with America's history, that are enjoyable to read, and overall "good" books.

A second contribution from me would be Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor. I haven't read it yet either, but it's another glowing recommendation from dad.

I will likely read one of the two books above, or a suggestion from one of the replies in this thread, next. Regardless, I think it has the potential to turn into a nice thread for people to use as a resource for enjoyable and good books about American history.

Thus, I welcome your recommendations. No guidelines, aside from them being good books that pertain to American history in some way.

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warrrreagl

Anything by James Loewen is fascinating, especially Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.

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Wilkerson

One of the best books I ever read; Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr. Also check out God Is Red by the same author. Both books are well written and informative.

Giant Hamburger

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

snowy

One of the best monographs I read for my U.S. History series in college was The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America by Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz. It primarily deals with a religious con artist who was active during the Second Great Awakening. It is actually really entertaining, and deals with a period of history on which the writing tends to be overly spiritual or bland.

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maleficent

Michael and Jeffrey Shaara have several series of books - on various wars - theres a new ww2 series that's been released that i've not gotten my hands on yet

The Killer Angels (the movie gettysburg was based on this book)
The last full m easure
Gods and Generals
The Glorious cause
were all about the civil war and really good reading

Gone for Soldiers - the mexican american war

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eribrav

1776 by David McCullough is quite good, I just recently read it.

My favorite "local" history book was about Rogers Rangers during the French and Indian War. I"m sorry I am blanking on the title right now. I thought it had something about "Northwest" in the title but I"m not finding it on Amazon.

Anyway, I think the pre-Revolutionary history of America is really interesting so don't forget to cover it in your reading.

Borla

I also enjoyed 1776.

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djtestudo

Lies My Teacher Told Me was really interesting. It covers all of the the myths of American history, and gives a clearer understanding of how we got to where we are (even quoting specific textbooks to point out their errors and omissions).

The whole series based off of The Killer Angels: Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure for the Civil War, Gone for Soldiers for the Mexican War, Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause for the American Revolution, To the Last Man for World War I, and The Rising Tide for World War II (the start of a trilogy).

Michael (TKA) and Jeff Shaara tell the stories of the events through the eyes of real people who were there; even though the books are fiction, and much of the dialog and internal monologue is invented, everything that is written about actually happened.

1776 focuses on just that one year, starting in late 1775 in England and going up through the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Gives a LOT of information on the Revolution and the people involved during that time, but is very readable.

The Don't Know Much About... series by Kenneth C. Davis are all easy to read and very interesting. And, there are multiple subjects to choose from.

What If... is an anthology of essays about major world events and how different outcomes could affect history. In asking the questions, the authors (people like James McPherson, David McCullough, the late Stephan Ambrose, and others) explain both the background information and future outcomes of the real events, so they give a good understanding even before asking their questions.

I also used to own two books called The Optimist's Guide to History and The Pessimist's Guide to History (guess which was bigger ), which were basically timelines with explanations for each event. Often amusing, but also very informative.

Hopefully my history-geekiness will help a little

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ShaniFaye

I have a very hard time reading non fictional history books, but I love historical fiction...Most anything John Jakes writes (especially the Bicentennial Series...the Bastard, the rebel etc and the north and south trilogy) give a very very good american history lesson for the time periods they are about. I learned way more from those than I ever did an actual "history" book

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roachboy

alot of historical fiction sits on the methodologies of romantic historians like michelet--they have a tons of data around them, rely on imaginative projection to mobilize that information and frame the results around the conventions of a novel. there are lots of versions---i am not a fan of straight historical fiction personally--i prefer the more self-conscious variants, like thomas pynchon, william vollman (his series on the history of america is amazing), john barthes (sotweed factor, giles goatboy)...

in poetry, charles olson's maximus poems are an astonishing rewrite of conventional american history and are serious scholarship to boot--and the work of paul metcalf is way too little known for stuff of such beauty and power....susan howe's earlier stuff is in this general tradition and is also lovely, if difficult at first.

i am a historian by training and employ and often think that the main differences between fiction and non-fiction when it comes to staging the past is
(a) the number of footnotes and
(b) that alot of the "non-fiction" is done by shitty writers.

side note 1: i generally stay away from american history written my americans (there are exceptions, but in general) because there is a methodological and political naivte in american history writing that allows one to write sentences that say stuff like "americans think that..." or "the american mind thinks that..."

i dont know what these could possibly mean.
you find this stuff everywhere in the regular histories.
i generally take the appearance of phrases like this as an index that the writer is not very skilled as a writer, no matter how good they might be as a researcher (there is VERY often a gap which separates these skills--don't get me started on it..i can blab at length...)

b) the most complex tradition of historical fiction/sociological fiction i know of is french---the main line of it runs from balzac through zola and proust, but it extends all over the place in french fiction.
vollman and pynchon seem to reference it.
very smart and very lovely---they dont treat people as stick figures in the way that alot of the straighter hist-fiction tends to--more like machines that perform their identities. it's an interesting way to think about people... less representational.

nice thread to resurrect, shani.

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Mondak

I just finished this last week. That a killer book. I had no idea that Lewis was so interesting. Funny that a history book where you know the ending could keep me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next.

I am also a Jefferson fan and it was nice to see information on him in this context.

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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

ColonelSpecial

"Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell. "With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage." --books.google.com

The written book is really good but the audio book is even better. It uses current famous people such as John Stewart to act as the historical famous people. It goes over the assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield.

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Plan9

Pick up a decent book about Abraham Lincoln by David Herbert Donald.

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