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Summer is here! Well, almost. Anyway, it is time to sit back and enjoy a good book or ten about our awesome country. I can read them while I'm rewinding the DVDs from my post about gun movies a few weeks ago.

I'd like recommendations for good, engaging books. Footnotes to original sources are great, but I really don't want to read a textbook. I like "historical fiction" when it is done well (Harrigan's "Gates of the Alamo"), but sometimes it can turn into pathetic history (which may be an extinct genre by now, I don't know), and I'd rather avoid that.

Topics I need to know more about:
*The period between the Mayflower and 1750
*The Founding Fathers
*The Revolutionary War
*Formation of the nation, the roles other nations played in the Revolution
*The (un)Civil War - why it was about State's Rights and not slavery.
*Abraham Lincoln: was he an abolitionist, or was it convenience?
*Gun control's racist origins
*The American West (boy, that's awful broad!)

Anyway, that's a start. I'm sure my horizons will broaden as I work through some of these and then get into the bibliographies of these topics. Maybe there are a couple out there that cover 350 years of American history in one book, and that might be a good starting point, but I'd like to drill down deep into these subjects to arm up on info, and to teach my kids what they are missing in school.

Thanks for any input y'all have!

The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, by Stephen Halbrook.

This is a scholarly book, but I found it quite readable. This book leaves no doubt that the authors of the U.S. or state constitutions would not have tolerated anything like what is called "gun control" today.

That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, by the same author.

I haven't read that one.

- Jim

For the topic of the Civil War, I read this book in my history class this semester. Required reading but interesting none the less. This book may be a bit boring if you're only interested in engaging narratives but the primary sources provided and referenced to are excellent; really a good debunker of how racist the war was. It is impossible to see it as a state's rights issue after reading, it simply wasn't.

Apostles of Disunion

No, karl, primary sources are what I'm looking for, too. And this is one of those subjects where I need to do more looking - some books I've seen synopses of say it was slavery, others say it was state's rights that were at the root of the Civil War. IIRC, the nation, until the Civil War was called "The united States", and after Reconstruction, it was changed to "The United States". A subtle change, but one that (sub)consciously changed the way the federal government dealt with the states. Was this a real shift or not? I don't know, and that's one of the things I'm looking for.

Keep 'em coming!

You might check with the library in Seguin. Some libraries have swap agreements with neighboring libraries.
In Particular, the Plano library(s) have exchange agreements with Allen and Collin County Community College.
I love to read, but every nook and cranny of this house is pretty well taken.
Hoot

hoot, I'm on a first-name basis with the Inter-library loan person here in Seguin. I do appreciate that libraries share their resources, especially since this library's collection is so thin. That's likely how I'll get most of these books anyway, as (1) I can't afford them all, and (2) there is just no room in the house, either.

Doesn't fit any of your categories, but one if the more interesting local histories I've read is called "Isaac's Storm" about the Galveston hurricane of 1900.

UpTheIrons wrote:No, karl, primary sources are what I'm looking for, too. And this is one of those subjects where I need to do more looking - some books I've seen synopses of say it was slavery, others say it was state's rights that were at the root of the Civil War. IIRC, the nation, until the Civil War was called "The united States", and after Reconstruction, it was changed to "The United States". A subtle change, but one that (sub)consciously changed the way the federal government dealt with the states. Was this a real shift or not? I don't know, and that's one of the things I'm looking for.

Keep 'em coming!

Whichever books you may have seen that say it was states' rights have not read the secession commissioners' public correspondence to fellow southern states during the winter of 1860-61(included in the appendix). If you're looking for an absolute number one cause to the war, it was slavery, not states' rights. However a case could be made that the rights of the states were infringed upon which was a secondary cause.

My professor loves to bring up the northerners view of the Slave Power Conspiracy. Southern slave owners would do anything to continue the institution of slavery, even infringe upon the rights of free whites and bear arms against their own countrymen.

Edit to fix my typo.

If you want an on the ground, soldier's perspective of everyday life in the Federal Army, I highly recommend "Hardtack and Coffee" by John Billings. It is a truly fascinating read.

Murray Rothbard's history of economic thought is one of the most detailed accounts of history you could ever come across.
http://mises.org/store/Austrian-Perspec ... -P273.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 5000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen.

This book is absolutely necessary to understanding the underlying principles of the Founders.

An interesting but long read is The Lost Cause, by E. A. Pollard. Pollard was editor of a Richmond, Virginia newspaper during the War of Northern Aggression. Lots of details, with some good essays from a different viewpoint than one normally gets.

If you can find a copy, Under the Black Flag by Kit Dalton. Dalton rode with Quantrill's raiders.

I also enjoyed Gray Ghost - the Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby. Mosby was a very bold practicioner of unconventional warfare.

For Old West shooting stories, find Texans, Guns, and History by Charles Askins, Jr., and Triggernometry by Eugene Cunningham

The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot covers small wars the US participated in back to the founding.

UpTheIrons wrote:I'd like recommendations for good, engaging books. Footnotes to original sources are great, but I really don't want to read a textbook. I like "historical fiction" when it is done well (Harrigan's "Gates of the Alamo"), but sometimes it can turn into pathetic history (which may be an extinct genre by now, I don't know), and I'd rather avoid that.

Topics I need to know more about:
*The period between the Mayflower and 1750

One historical fiction, somewhat short but well researched and truthful, that I have enjoyed is the story of my family's massacre at the hands of the Abenaki indians ,the kidnapping of some of the children, and the subsequent travels and travails. The book, written by Helen McCarthy and intended for the younger set, was extensively contributed to and vetted by my grandfather before publication, offers some little insight into the "French and Indian Wars" era.

http://www.amazon.com/Lydia-Longley-Fir ... B0006AVDZ0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I really enjoyed this 3-volume set (still available, but out of print' I found in a library) and it pretty well explains a lot of America's foundational history (Why President John Adams [named after John Bass] wrote to his wife about their relatives on the Mayflower, because of their connection to the Bass family ... about that rabble rouser Samuel Adams (named after Deacon Samuel Bass) distributing revolutionary leaflets .... etc etc etc. About the first Court/judge in this country who could hear cases all the way up to ten dollars ... about how the Mayflower Pact-> was based upon sone church documents, and the original government documents emerged from that .. all sorts of interesting historical stuff
you can read scanned versions online http://www.archive.org/stream/threeepis ... 7/mode/2up" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Author: Adams, Charles Francis, 1835-1915
Three episodes of Massachusetts history : the settlement of Boston Bay, the Antimonian Controversary, a study of Church and town government (1903 is a subesquent printing date, I think about the 6th revision/printing) Originally written in the 1800s as you see in the link below
http://www.archive.org/details/threeepi ... 01adamuoft" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Exerpt)
Portage history
http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/jblythe/2 ... )_6406.pdf