Reading 2010

I have recdently finished Manhunt: The 12-day Chase for Lincoln's Killer which was very enjoyable. I am now reading April 1865, which alos look like it will be quite good.

Just finished The Darkest Jungle. Very good book about a very little known subject.

Now about 54 pages into American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age (gotta love those subtitles!) by Pete Davies. Pretty good so far. It is true, as pointed out by a review on Amazon, that this book isn't aimed at "gearheads", it's more of a social history. Still, the author weaves a good tale combining the early automotive entrepreneurs, the beginning attempts to build the Lincoln Highway, and the story of the cross-country trip itself.

April 1865 is definitely one of the best Civil War era books I've read. I am now reading Bruce Chadwick's Lincoln for President, about the 1860 campaign. Quite good.

I am currently reading John Brown's Trial. I can't seem to read enough about Brown. He was such a multi-faceted character.

Posted the following in another thread, forgot there was a "March 2010" thread open as well. Apologies to those who are following both threads.

"Part way through Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America. It's turning out to be quite good. The author's style occasionally swings into first person and the present as he tells the story. His style is very chatty, not a surprise from someone who is executive editor for Sports Illustrated and has written for Rolling Stone, Esquire and People magazines, among others. And he is the tiniest bit snarky. Still, it's rather enjoyable, but don't expect it to be another Seabiscuit. I would recommend it for horse lovers of course, but it's also a nice slice of Americana covering the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."

Just finished Close To Shore. Pretty well told tale, although a bit slow and stylistic. Irrespective of the whole shark think, I learned a lot about America circa 1916 which is always a nice bonus.

I heartily recommend The Last Stand of Fox Company -- an excellent account of Marines in combat.

Half way through Commissioner Roosevelt. Pretty good book, although the author does focus a bit too much at times on conversations that make it somewhat harder to follow the narrative. Overall however an excellent addition to anyone's "Teddy" collection.

There have recently been a couple of books published critical of TR: The Imperial Cruise and The War Lovers. Any thoughts or opinions about these books?

Cross-posted from the Military History section, with appropriate edits.

Lexington and Concord:The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution was very good all the way through, definitely worthwhile for a very definitive look at those battles plus the events leading up to them and after. Especially interesting is the description of how the rebels/patriots quickly and comprehensively sought to "spin" and disseminate their version of the story not only to all the colonies but also to England.

Part way through Patriot Battles. A more "pop" history then a rigorous academic tome which perhaps makes it easier to read for some folks.

rant on/

Published in 2007 and obviously written in the couple of years before, the author in the introduction draws parallels between the War of Independence, Vietnam and the Iraq War. Some of it is fine, some of it is rather subjective; listen carefully and you can hear the sound of the grinding of an ax. When mentioning the Iraq War and insurgents the author always seems to enclose the latter in quotes. In fact a note to the Introduction goes to great (and pretty much pointless) lengths to compare George III and George W. Bush.

I'm not a big fan of George W, but I got this book to learn more about the War of Independence, not to appreciate and applaud the author's politics.

rant off/

I've hopefully gotten past the majority of the comparison making and it seems the rest isn't too bad, but I'll post when I finish with my final opinion.

Patriot Battles got better, although the second half of the book, containing shorter summaries of various battles, isn't really in keeping with the first half, which did a lot more detailing of the "how".

Starting The Making of the Prefident 1789 by Marvin Kitman. I really enjoyed his previous book George Washington's Expense Account which I read years ago. The Making of the Prefident 1789, to quote the back cover, 'satirizes the contemporary "campaign insider" book while making the case that George Washington was not only "First in War, First in Peace" - he was also first among the Founding Fathers in gambling, drinking, and social climbing'. This isn't a frivolous book, there are extensive notes and he does quote many contemporaries of Washington as well as his major biographers. It's Kitman's way of commenting on the facts that entertains some and I'm sure will infuriate others.

I am reading "Power of a Woman," by Rober Fripp. It's an interesting look at Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine through her own voice as told to her servant/secretary. Very well done.

About to finish up Founding Brothers. It is not quite as good as some of the previous history books I have read and is a lot like Revolutionary Characters.

I just started on Pox Americana, and so far it is fascinating. A very interesting book.

I'm half way through How The States Got Their Shapes. Interesting, although not a narrative history of course, so it's a bit dry.

>5 LCBrooks: LCBrooks

If you are ever in Maryland be sure to visit Harpers Ferry,W.V. The entire downtown has been restored to its 1859 appearance.
Also, the house where John Brown lived in Maryland while planning the Raid is now a county Park. The county is Washington County.
The Antietam Battlefield is not far away around Sharpsburg, Md. The Antietam Battlefield is the best preserved Civil War battlefield in the nation. Maryland has created scenic easements to preserve the rustic views.

Halfway through Everyday Life in Early America. Very enjoyable narrative about the details of life in the colonies during the seventeenth century.

I will check The Last Stand of Fox Company out for sure. Ever since I watched the Hurt Locker I've been very fascinated with military history. Thanks for the recommend!

Part way through The Race Beat. Very well written, interesting and (surprisingly) moves along quite well.

Oops, haven't posted in this thread for awhile. I've been alternating reading military history with... civilian history? Anyway, since the beginning of June I've read...

The Reshaping of Everyday Life 1790-1840: I enjoy this series and this book is as good as the others.

A Gallant Little Army: Crossover between American and military history. A very well written book with good narrative style and decent maps, although the latter actually come from another book!

Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis aboard MIR: Very much a gossipy book and only enjoyable as such, really not for tech heads.

Diamond Jim Brady: I was leery of reading another book by Jeffers, since I found his Commissioner Roosevelt failed to hold my interest towards the end, but this book is lively and informative.

Utter's Battalion: An above average Vietnam memoir, thankfully devoid of contrived dialog and rambling philosophical thoughts.

And in progress I have the following books:

Flight From Monticello: In spite of the title this book is really more about the Revolutionary War in Virginia than about Jefferson, but is the better for it. I was woefully unaware of what went on in this colony during the war, which turns out to be a lot. A very enjoyable narrative.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire: I just got this book in the mail but couldn't wait to start it. I enjoyed Dolin's last book, Leviathan, and this one seems just as well written. While the Amazon listing shows 464 pages, the main body ends after about three hundred and the rest are an immense collection of notes. I do wish authors would cull out the informational text from the notes and either put it in the main body or as footnotes on the bottom of the page, while relegating the source references to the back. However, this is a minor nit.

I read Jeffers' book on Diamond Jim many years ago and found it wonderful.

Just finished Richmond Burning about the Confederate capital during the last couple of weeks of the American Civil War. A well written narrative history, it focuses on the city and it's people rather than the ongoing fighting. Highly recommended.

Just started Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White by David Barton

Just finished The Third Reich in Power. I thought it was very well written. The author wrote Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust and the David Irving Trial which is an interesting book about holocaust denial.

Started The Whiskey Rebellion by Thomas P. Slaughter but frankly it was too academic for me. Also the print was so darn small! I'd only recommend it if you are really interested in a lot of analysis and pontificating about the subject.

Recently finished Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt really was a very interesting person. Probably a pretty decent President, but just a fascinating character

Just finished Pox Americana (silly touchstones) by Elizabeth A. Fenn. A surprisingly interesting book covering a lesser known but very significant outbreak of smallpox on the North American continent during the years of the American Revolution. The author ties the effects of smallpox upon the military actions during the war, then discusses how the pox affected the English fur trade around Hudson Bay, the decimating of the Native American tribes in the plains, the Spanish in the Southwest and other related changes. The book can be a bit dry at times, but mostly it tells an interesting story. Highly recommended for those with an interest in this period of time.

I just started The Unknown American Revolution, attracted by the blurbs promising a messier, rowdier, and more radical revolution than the clean, idea-driven one I've sort of gotten used to reading about.

#26 Have you read The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland? Much less academic, normal sized print, and a good book.

#30 Actually I just picked this up, it's in that huge, massive pile I call my "to be read... sometime" list

Just finished Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. This is an excellent account of Lee's defeat of John Pope's Army of Virginia.

Just finished Crash Out by David Goewey. A very good book (see the Amazon page for more info about the subject, it does it more justice than I could). The author does take some liberties in setting the scenes and providing descriptions in the same way that Laura Hillenbrand does in Seabiscuit, but he does it very well and makes obvious the places where he makes assumptions. It is well written, very informative and moves along at a good pace. Highly recommended.

Just finished Devil's Gate. Excellent book, highly recommended.

TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID: A STORY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH

It's a silly, sentimental piece of fiction BUT I'm treating as a primary source.

also the following memoirs:

Asia On a Bicycle : The Journey of Two American Students From Constantinople to Peking

Letters of a Woman Homesteader
A LADY'S LIFE ON A FARM IN MANITOBA
Memoir of Hannah Adam

The following non-memoir period pieces:

Along The New Line To The Pacific Coast : Opportunities On The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway -- a nice bit of propaganda

The American Frugal Housewife

Some Notes on the First Recorded Visit of White Men to the Site of the Present City of Richmond, Virginia

And finally an account of the disappearance of an American cyclist overseas at the turn of the century:

Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance

I'm sorry that the touchstones seem so darn temperamental.

#30 I went ahead and read The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland, thanks for the recommendation. Pretty good book and very different in style and content than Slaughter's book. I was surprised about how much I didn't know about this episode of American history.

#36 - Glad you enjoyed it. I felt the same way after reading it. One day I may try Slaughter's book.

#36 Brew a lot of coffee!

Haven't posted for awhile...

Read With Zeal and With Bayonets Only. Very good book, although it does drag on a bit as the author uses repeated quotes to substantiate a point, these can get tedious after a well. Never the less, an excellent scholarly work. Highly recommended.

Also read Down The Great Unknown. A very interesting book in that the author uses interviews and quotes from more recent river travelers to give the reader a fuller sense of what it must have been like to go down the Green and Colorado rivers in 1869. Highly recommended.

Started Before Lewis and Clark by Shirley Christian but gave up about halfway through. Sadly it's rather dull reading. The author recounts who did this and who when where, but a lack of descriptive content of locales and peoples makes it rather dry. Not recommended.

Recently completed Eisenhower Which was a very good read. I think he was a good President but not one of the great ones. I did learn more about the Korean War than I had before. And I enjoyed reading ab out the younger Nixon, Kennedy and even a younger Reagan as well. It read like a novel and so the 574 pages did not take me very long.

Just starting John Marshall: Writings. This book is the most recent of a number of volumes of writings of the Founding Fathers published by Library of America. There were numerous citations from these books in Empire of Liberty which I read last year. Primary sources are always the best and I particularly enjoy reading the letters which are a significant part of all of the volumes.

Just started Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by James Swanson.

The most satisfying book I've read in ages: Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Commanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne.

I am reading Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. It is well written and full of details such as Matthew's Brady's photograph of Lincoln taken while he was in New York. It is a little strong to say that the speech made Lincoln President but it was his first introduction to New York audiences and the speech did make a good impression on his audience.

Just finished A Pickpocket's Tale. It's an excellent book, highly recommended for not only the biographical aspects, but also for it's extensive look into urban crime, justice and incarceration during the second half of the 19th century. It's not a lighthearted crime story but a serious yet still very readable scholarly work. Extensive notes and references are included and also many interesting illustrations.

Reading "The Saga of Eric the Red". Thought I'd go back to eaaaarly American history.

Finished Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi. Fairly decent book composed of a number of narrative tales from the start of the use of steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi to a later focus on voyages on the river upsteam of St Louis. The chapters are somewhat unrelated at times, going from a biography of a famous captain to a famous 1854 sightseeing excursion. Written about eighty years ago the style and word usage may be a little off-putting to a modern reader, but there are many interesting stories and facts.

Also finished 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents. A well written popular history of the election year, but also of the various candidates and their lives leading up to it. The author is rather opinionated and is not reluctant to judge. There are copious notes to sustain his facts, if not necessarily his opinions. The book moves along at a good pace and is well structured to prevent the reader from being overwhelmed with it's cast of dozens of characters. I would definitely recommend it to all readers, although due to the judgmental tone I would suggest caution regarding forming final opinions on the people or their actions.

Just beginning Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788. This book was published this year which may be the reason for the touchstone problem. I have read a number of books on the Constitutional Convention but this is the first narrative history of the ratification debates that I have found.

#51 - Looking forward to your opinions on this. The few reviews on the Amazon page seem to indicate it's an interesting book.

I recently picked up two volumes on Jefferson's presidency by Dumas Malone. To set the stage for those, I'm re-reading A magnificent catastrophe.

And another one finished. The Galvanized Yankees is an interesting book about US Civil War Confederate soldiers who were offered a chance to take an oath of loyalty to the Union if they would enlist in the army and serve on the western frontier. About six thousand eventually did so, serving between 1864 and 1866. Brown's narrative history mostly follows them by recalling the history of a unit or units grouped together, with a couple of chapters about individuals. Recommended for most interested in military or American history, although the book does tend to get repetitious at times. Mine is the 1963 mass market paperback version and while it does have some photos there are no maps at all.

I have just finished reading "The 1912 Election and the Power of Progress: A Brief History with Documents" by Brett Flehinger. It was short, but it gave a good summery of how the candidates stood on the issues of monopolies and democratic reform as well as women's suffrage.

I have just finished reading "The 1912 Election and the Power of Progressivism: A Brief History with Documents" by Brett Flehinger. It was short, but it gave a good summery of how the candidates stood on the issues of monopolies and democratic reform as well as women's suffrage.

I am currently reading Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. It's making for some very interesting reading. For one thing it illustrates the importance of "who you know" when it comes to making money and getting important contracts. Blackwater started out as an independent training facility for the Navy Seals, and now includes such groups as CIA, police divisions, military, foreign militaries, etc., and is highly influenced by its major financier who happens to be a very conservative Republican/Christian backer. Since 9/11 it has obtained some major contracts, and is an organization we may want to keep our eye on. As I said, it's making for some very interesting reading.

Finished The First Tycoon. This book starts off well with the very interesting details of Vanderbilt's early life on the waters around New York and his transition from a minor entrepreneur to a major player in the development of shipping lines around the world as well as ferries and railroads in the northeast. However, the last third of the book, covering his activities as a major trader and manipulator of railroads, gets somewhat dull as quite a lot of it deals with stock trading, corporates shenanigans and backroom deals. Overall a pretty good however and worth the time if you are interested in nineteen century America.

Also finished Spalding's World Tour. This is a surprisingly interesting book even if you aren't a baseball fan. An enterprising team owner and upcoming sports equipment magnate, Spalding sought to gain more visibility for the American pastime by doing exhibition games around the world over the course of six months in 1888-89. The book really is much more about the experiences of a group of Americans, mostly young men (several wives came along), visiting exotic places and behaving like, well, a bunch of young men would on a rather incredible road trip. Lamster is a very good writer who carries the story along with fun anecdotes and never bogs down in moralizing or schmaltz. Highly recommended.

Am very much pleased with '46 PAGES', about the political pamphlet which brought about a complete reversal of American opinion concerning the issue of Independence of the American colonies.
According to this work, in May of 1775, after the first shots of the War for Independence, most of the Colonies instructed their Representatives to the Second Continental Congress to avoid supporting a motion to declare Independence from Britain. Then, in January of 1776, Thomas Paine published anonymously what is probably the most influential political document in American history; "COMMON SENSE". It was an overwhelmingly popular tract which convinced most Americans that Independence was not only possible but necessary to preserve the Liberties of America. It completely redefined the issue of American 'Rights' and convinced almost everyone that the struggle for Democracy was a turning point in History that would "start the world anew."
I highly recommend this book.

Recently read The First Congress. Having read George Washinton's Expense Account years back, I laughed out loud when I read that Washington had offered to take no salary, only expenses, and that Congress, remembering his expenses as head of the army, said "No!"

>60 myshelves: I remember reading George Washinton's Expense Account years ago as well.