Why am I passionate about this?

I am a history professor at Ohio State, where I have taught for most of my career. I have always been fascinated by how people in different regions define their own identities, how other Americans perceive them, and how these ideas change over time. Having lived through several wars (as a civilian), I have observed that social and political conflicts on the homefront can be intense in their own right and that non-military events and military events are often connected. In my work, I have published on gender, race, slavery, family, material culture, legal history, and environmental history, from the Revolution through the Civil War. 


I wrote

Book cover of War Stuff: The Struggle for Human and Environmental Resources in the American Civil War

What is my book about?

This book explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war.

This…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

Joan E. Cashin Why did I love this book?

This book establishes that slavery was central to the Rhode Island economy from the colonial period well into the nineteenth century.

For many years, historians concentrated on slavery in the South, but we now have great scholarship on slavery in the North. Clark-Pujara illustrates how the black community, including the women, struggled against oppression in New England.  

Once I started reading, I could hardly put it down.

By Christy Clark-Pujara,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dark Work as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tells the story of one state in particular whose role in the slave trade was outsized: Rhode Island
Historians have written expansively about the slave economy and its vital role in early American economic life. Like their northern neighbors, Rhode Islanders bought and sold slaves and supplies that sustained plantations throughout the Americas; however, nowhere else was this business so important. During the colonial period trade with West Indian planters provided Rhode Islanders with molasses, the key ingredient for their number one export: rum. More than 60 percent of all the slave ships that left North America left from Rhode…


Book cover of Eliza Lucas Pinckney: An Independent Woman in the Age of Revolution

Joan E. Cashin Why did I love this book?

The first scholarly biography of an unusual white woman who had a long career as a planter and agricultural innovator. 

Pinckney was comfortable in wielding power, and she mixed with some of the most famous men and women in the Revolutionary Era. This book is also a page turner. I believe readers will enjoy the way it sheds light on the complexity of human behavior.

By Lorri Glover,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Eliza Lucas Pinckney as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The award-winning biography of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, an innovative, highly regarded, and successful woman plantation owner during the Revolutionary era

"Glover not only recovers the life of a remarkable eighteenth-century woman, she also issues a challenge to the gendered narrative of the Age of Revolution. Eliza Lucas Pinckney would undoubtedly approve!"-Carol Berkin, author of Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence

Winner of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic's James Bradford Biography Prize and the South Carolina Historical Society's George C. Rogers Jr. Book Award

Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) reshaped the colonial South Carolina economy…


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Book cover of Love and War in the Jewish Quarter

Love and War in the Jewish Quarter By Dora Levy Mossanen,

A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter.

Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of the…

Book cover of Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South

Joan E. Cashin Why did I love this book?

Black people, enslaved and free, sued whites in court in Mississippi and Louisiana, and sometimes they won. 

Welch researched hundreds of documents in some archives off the beaten path. She discovered a hitherto unknown chapter of African American life which changes our perspective on the legal system. 

I felt inspired by the courage and resilience of the litigants. 

By Kimberly M. Welch,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued to enforce the terms of their contracts, recover unpaid debts, recuperate back wages, and claim damages for assault. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. And they often won. Based on new research conducted in courthouse basements and storage sheds in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, Kimberly Welch draws on over 1,000 examples of free and enslaved black litigants who used the courts to protect their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society.

To understand their…


Book cover of Hearts Beating for Liberty: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest

Joan E. Cashin Why did I love this book?

Robertson focuses on dedicated female abolitionists in the Midwest, whom scholars have neglected. 

They threw themselves into their activism, supporting boycotts, aiding runaway slaves, and supporting reform parties. She highlights their flexibility and pragmatism, including their willingness to work with abolitionists of all backgrounds.

I found this title uplifting.

By Stacey M. Robertson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hearts Beating for Liberty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Challenging traditional histories of abolition, this book shifts the focus away from the East to show how the women of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin helped build a vibrant antislavery movement in the Old Northwest.

Stacey Robertson argues that the environment of the Old Northwest--with its own complicated history of slavery and racism--created a uniquely collaborative and flexible approach to abolitionism. Western women helped build this local focus through their unusual and occasionally transgressive activities. They plunged into Liberty Party politics, vociferously supported a Quaker-led boycott of slave goods, and tirelessly aided fugitives and free blacks in their communities.…


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Book cover of The Constant Tower

The Constant Tower By Carole McDonnell,

This is a multicultural epic fantasy with a diverse cast of characters. Sickly fifteen-year-old Prince Psal, the son of warrior-king Nahas, should have been named Crown Prince of all Wheel Clan lands. But his clan disdains the disabled.

When the mysterious self-moving towers that keep humans safe from the Creator's…

Book cover of Loyalty and Loss: Alabama's Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction

Joan E. Cashin Why did I love this book?

Storey reveals that a substantial number of white Alabamians strongly opposed secession and the Confederacy. 

The homefront, much like the battlefield, was a scene of protracted power struggles. This is also an important work on historical memory, for after 1865, these Unionists were forgotten. 

I loved this book, and many students love reading it.  

By Margaret M. Storey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Loyalty and Loss as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Though slavery was widespread and antislavery sentiment rare in Alabama, there emerged a small loyalist population, mostly in the northern counties, that persisted in the face of overwhelming odds against their cause. Margaret M. Storey's welcome study uncovers and explores those Alabamians who maintained allegiance to the Union when their state seceded in 1861, and beyond. Storey's extensive, groundbreaking research discloses a socioeconomically diverse group that included slaveholders and nonslaveholders, business people, professionals, farmers, and blacks. By considering the years 1861-1874 as a whole, she clearly connects loyalists' sometimes brutal wartime treatment with their postwar behavior.


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of War Stuff: The Struggle for Human and Environmental Resources in the American Civil War

What is my book about?

This book explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war.

This war “stuff” included the skills of white Southern civilians, male and female, as well as such material resources as food, timber, and housing. At first, civilians were willing to help Confederate or Union armies, but the war took such a toll that all civilians, regardless of politics, began focusing on their own survival. In this fierce contest between civilians and armies, the civilian population lost.

Book cover of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
Book cover of Eliza Lucas Pinckney: An Independent Woman in the Age of Revolution
Book cover of Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South

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Interested in slaves, South Carolina, and Mississippi?

Slaves 106 books
South Carolina 48 books
Mississippi 89 books