100 books like Frontier Intimacies

By Paola Canova,

Here are 100 books that Frontier Intimacies fans have personally recommended if you like Frontier Intimacies. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

René Harder Horst Author Of A History of Indigenous Latin America: Aymara to Zapatistas

From my list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born on the Navajo reservation and then raised among the Qom, Mocoi, and Pilagá in Argentina, I have been with Native peoples throughout my life. After studying Indigenous and Native American histories at Indiana University, I taught at Kalamazoo and Bates College, where I took students to track and canoe on Penobscot reserves. I write about Guaraní histories and have enjoyed teaching Indigenous, Native, and Latin American histories at Appalachian State University; some of my graduate students are now excellent university professors here in the Southeast. It was for these Indigenous peoples and for my amazing students that I wrote and dedicated my textbook.

René's book list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America

René Harder Horst Why did René love this book?

This brilliant book summarizes the history of Indigenous people in this country. It was written by a person with Indigenous heritage who participated in global Indigenous movements for over four decades.

I wish I had had this book accessible when I studied Native American history long ago with Western Cherokee Professor Dr. David Edmunds. 

This award-winning book provides a new way to understand Native people and why they have struggled so tenaciously for their human rights, even in a country that promotes itself as the world’s beacon of democracy. I recommend it unequivocally to everyone.

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Bestseller

Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck

Recipient of the American Book Award

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples
 
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortizoffers a history…


Book cover of A Global History of Indigenous Peoples: Struggle and Survival

René Harder Horst Author Of A History of Indigenous Latin America: Aymara to Zapatistas

From my list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born on the Navajo reservation and then raised among the Qom, Mocoi, and Pilagá in Argentina, I have been with Native peoples throughout my life. After studying Indigenous and Native American histories at Indiana University, I taught at Kalamazoo and Bates College, where I took students to track and canoe on Penobscot reserves. I write about Guaraní histories and have enjoyed teaching Indigenous, Native, and Latin American histories at Appalachian State University; some of my graduate students are now excellent university professors here in the Southeast. It was for these Indigenous peoples and for my amazing students that I wrote and dedicated my textbook.

René's book list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America

René Harder Horst Why did René love this book?

I have taught with this book so effectively in my classes because it made me realize that Native people all around the world faced similar experiences of colonization, discrimination, and marginalization to those in Latin America. 

Indigenous cultures and histories have empowered these people to defend themselves, resist creatively, and shape the states that encapsulated them in important ways. 

This book helped me better understand that the Indigenous people I grew up among in Argentina and studied in Paraguay share so much in common with Indigenous peoples throughout the world. Students in my class, A World History of Indigenous Peoples, liked this book because it summarized the subject so well.

By Ken S. Coates,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Global History of Indigenous Peoples as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Global History of Indigenous Peoples examines the history of the indigenous/tribal peoples of the world. The work spans the period from the pivotal migrations which saw the peopling of the world, examines the processes by which tribal peoples established themselves as separate from surplus-based and more material societies, and considers the impact of the policies of domination and colonization which brought dramatic change to indigenous cultures. The book covers both tribal societies affected by the expansion of European empires and those indigenous cultures influenced by the economic and military expansion of non-European powers. The work concludes with a discussion…


Book cover of Reimagining the Gran Chaco: Identities, Politics, and the Environment in South America

René Harder Horst Author Of A History of Indigenous Latin America: Aymara to Zapatistas

From my list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born on the Navajo reservation and then raised among the Qom, Mocoi, and Pilagá in Argentina, I have been with Native peoples throughout my life. After studying Indigenous and Native American histories at Indiana University, I taught at Kalamazoo and Bates College, where I took students to track and canoe on Penobscot reserves. I write about Guaraní histories and have enjoyed teaching Indigenous, Native, and Latin American histories at Appalachian State University; some of my graduate students are now excellent university professors here in the Southeast. It was for these Indigenous peoples and for my amazing students that I wrote and dedicated my textbook.

René's book list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America

René Harder Horst Why did René love this book?

This wonderful book collects ethnographies about Indigenous peoples in the Gran Chaco. This beautiful region, where I grew up and currently teach about, links Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil and is home to over twenty-five Indigenous nations. 

The Gran Chaco is ecologically important because it is the second-largest biome in Latin America and the site of multiple extractive industries. Ranchers and soy planters are currently deforesting the region at the highest rate in the world and displacing the Indigenous peoples, forcing them into poverty, hunger, and prostitution.  

By Silvia Hirsch (editor), Paola Canova (editor), Mercedes Biocca (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reimagining the Gran Chaco as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This volume traces the socioeconomic and environmental changes taking place in the Gran Chaco, a vast and richly biodiverse ecoregion at the intersection of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Representing a wide range of contemporary anthropological scholarship that has not been available in English until now, Reimagining the Gran Chaco illuminates how the region's many indigenous groups are negotiating these transformations in their own terms.

The essays in this volume explore how the region has become a complex arena of political, cultural, and economic contestation between actors that include the state, environmental and NGOs, and private businesses and how local…


Book cover of Disrupting the Patron: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay's Chaco

René Harder Horst Author Of A History of Indigenous Latin America: Aymara to Zapatistas

From my list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born on the Navajo reservation and then raised among the Qom, Mocoi, and Pilagá in Argentina, I have been with Native peoples throughout my life. After studying Indigenous and Native American histories at Indiana University, I taught at Kalamazoo and Bates College, where I took students to track and canoe on Penobscot reserves. I write about Guaraní histories and have enjoyed teaching Indigenous, Native, and Latin American histories at Appalachian State University; some of my graduate students are now excellent university professors here in the Southeast. It was for these Indigenous peoples and for my amazing students that I wrote and dedicated my textbook.

René's book list on understand Indigenous peoples in Latin America

René Harder Horst Why did René love this book?

I loved this book because it provided a geographic perspective that deepened my understanding of how Native people in the Lower Chaco of Paraguay are mobilizing to reclaim their land. Like Indigenous people throughout the world, the transition to ranching pushed these people off their homelands and made them dispensable peons.

Refusing to give up, the Enxet and Sanapaná employed international advocates to pressure neoliberal politicians to return their lands. I was so impressed by Correia’s years of participant observations and the insights he provides into the Native peoples’ changing world.

By Joel E. Correia,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Disrupting the Patron as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

In Paraguay's Chaco region, cattle ranching drives some of the world's fastest deforestation and most extreme inequality in land tenure, with grave impacts on Indigenous well-being. Disrupting the Patron traces Enxet and Sanapana struggles to reclaim their ancestral lands from the cattle ranches where they labored as peons-a decades-long resistance that led to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and back to the frontlines of Paraguay's ranching frontier. The Indigenous communities at the heart of this…


Book cover of Peace Shall Destroy Many

Janelle Diller Author Of Never Enough Flamingos

From my list on those quirky Mennonites.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in Kansas and will forever have a soft spot in my heart for golden wheat fields, sunflower-filled ditches, and sunsets that explode colors on the horizon. I always knew I’d write a book set in Kansas, and I’d explore my long Mennonite linage and its seemingly unrealistic theology. Pacifism is a beautiful concept until you’re faced with protecting the people you love. As I grew older, I became more curious about larger, practical questions. It’s one thing to be a conscientious objector to war. It’s another thing to confront the cosmically dark evil of your neighbor. From that, Never Enough Flamingos was born.

Janelle's book list on those quirky Mennonites

Janelle Diller Why did Janelle love this book?

I first read this book about Mennonites in western Canada during WWII while I was in college. Wiebe had the audacity to pull back the curtain and expose the very human inconsistencies between what we Mennonites believe and how we sometimes behave, particularly around pacifism, racism, and money. Mennonites pride (uh oh) ourselves on living our theology, so the book created quite a stir in the Mennonite world because Wiebe took some shine off the denomination. That very act raised important theological questions for me, ones that I’ll always grapple with in one form or another.

I like to think Wiebe would approve that I, too, have pulled back the curtain with Never Enough Flamingos.

By Rudy Wiebe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Peace Shall Destroy Many as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…


Book cover of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home

Alvin Schnupp Author Of Goods & Effects

From my list on women artists and activists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by women who are artists and activists, such as Ivy Bottini, Käthe Kollwitz and Peggy Guggenheim. (All subjects of plays I wrote). They are convicted, unique, champions of justice, diversity and inclusion.

Alvin's book list on women artists and activists

Alvin Schnupp Why did Alvin love this book?

A fun, insightful, humorous revelation about a celebrated poet who returns to her conservative home and examines the people and ideas that shaped her. I identify with this book because I, too, was raised Mennonite. In addition. The protagonist of my book is a Mennonite.

By Rhoda Janzen,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mennonite in a Little Black Dress as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"It is rare that I literally laugh out loud while I'm reading, but Janzen's voice―singular, deadpan, sharp-witted and honest―slayed me." ―Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her quirky Mennonite family's home, where she was…


Book cover of Women Talking

Emma Sloley Author Of Disaster's Children

From my list on women trying to survive cults.

Why am I passionate about this?

Increasingly, the fiction I’m most drawn to occupies the space between literary and speculative. This space fascinates me both as a reader and a writer. I love stories set in worlds shifted ever-so-slightly from the familiar, where characters are forced to navigate new ways of existing or find ways to escape. Perhaps that’s why so many of my favorite stories—and my first two novels!—tend to feature women in cults or other cloistered communities, caught between their desire for belonging and the potential annihilation of the self. Where do you excavate for happiness in a hostile world? My characters spend their lives trying to answer this question. 

Emma's book list on women trying to survive cults

Emma Sloley Why did Emma love this book?

There is subtle genius in the way Miriam Toews pays such close attention to the humanity of her often heartbreaking characters while also being dryly funny. Set in a closed, conservative Mennonite community, the story unfolds as “minutes” taken by a young man as he listens to a group of women from the community who have discovered they were drugged and assaulted while sleeping, by men they know. (Their fathers, sons, husbands, and friends.) The story is based on a real case, and while the details are chillingly horrific, Toews finds a way for the characters to talk about these things that are warm, humorous, and compassionate, as the women become alive for the first time to their own unexamined power. 

By Miriam Toews,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Women Talking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale.” -Margaret Atwood, on Twitter

"Scorching . . . a wry, freewheeling novel of ideas that touches on the nature of evil, questions of free will, collective responsibility, cultural determinism, and, above all, forgiveness." -New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice

One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For…


Book cover of European Mennonites and the Holocaust

Kevin P. Spicer and Rebecca Carter-Chand Author Of Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars

From my list on German Protestantism in Hitler’s Germany.

Why are we passionate about this?

Kevin P. Spicer is a historian of twentieth-century Germany who investigates the relationship between church and state from 1918-1945. I'm fascinated by the choices of Christian leaders as they negotiated the challenges of living and leading under National Socialism. I seek to understand the connections between Christian antisemitism and National Socialist’s racial-based exclusionary ethnonationalism and antisemitism. Rebecca Carter-Chand is a historian of twentieth-century Germany who focuses on Christianity during the Nazi period. I'm particularly interested in the smaller Christian churches on the margins of the German religious landscape, many of which maintained ties with their co-religionists abroad. I seek to understand how religious communities navigate ethical and practical challenges of political upheaval and fascism.

Kevin's book list on German Protestantism in Hitler’s Germany

Kevin P. Spicer and Rebecca Carter-Chand Why did Kevin love this book?

The collective memory of Mennonites during the Holocaust has long been mythologized or has remained unexamined. A recent renewal of interest from both the Mennonite community itself and scholars of the Holocaust has led to a number of conferences and publications. This collection of essays showcases the latest scholarship and paints a complex portrait of Mennonites in both western and eastern Europe during the Holocaust. The book highlights the many roles that Mennonites played, largely due to their proximity to the events of the Holocaust, including as neighbors, killers, enablers, witnesses, and rescuers. The contributors discuss Mennonite identity, theology, agency, and collective memory, all situating their stories in local, national, and European geopolitical contexts. 

By Mark Jantzen (editor), John D. Thiesen (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked European Mennonites and the Holocaust as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During the Second World War, Mennonites in the Netherlands, Germany, occupied Poland, and Ukraine lived in communities with Jews and close to various Nazi camps and killing sites. As a result of this proximity, Mennonites were neighbours to and witnessed the destruction of European Jews. In some cases they were beneficiaries or even enablers of the Holocaust. Much of this history was forgotten after the war, as Mennonites sought to rebuild or find new homes as refugees. The result was a myth of Mennonite innocence and ignorance that connected their own suffering during the 1930s and 1940s with earlier centuries…


Book cover of Mennonite Girl at the Welcome Inn

Karen Harmon Author Of Where Is My Happy Ending?: A Journey of No Regrets

From my list on mental health, addiction, and families.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have the expertise for this topic because I was raised in a loving home with a mother who struggled with bipolar disorder. At times my life was hilariously adventurous or heart-wrenchingly sad. Given little direction, I married an alcoholic and then went on to work at a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. I have fallen on hard times, but at the age of thirty-two, as a single mother collecting welfare, I managed to grief, heal and dig myself out, creating a rewarding life. I am optimistic, and I try to find humour in all things, especially after the tears and healing have subsided. My writing has brought me tremendous healing and joy.

Karen's book list on mental health, addiction, and families

Karen Harmon Why did Karen love this book?

This lovely memoir follows Mary, the daughter of Mennonite Pastors. Her recollections are comical and heartwarming as she deals with growing up in a Mennonite home in a non-Mennonite community. The creativity that goes with being raised with little means and living frugally makes Mary and her family rich beyond belief in adventure and storytelling.

By Mary Ediger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mennonite Girl at the Welcome Inn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Welcome to the Welcome Inn and welcome to the life of Mary Ediger. A work of creative non-fiction, Mennonite Girl follows Mary from her life as a young girl in a quiet rural parsonage to an inner city community center in Hamilton, Ontario.
The daughter of a Mennonite preacher, Mary struggles with the trials of growing up Mennonite in a non-Mennonite community, while her parents continue to follow God's call. Young and old, religious and non-religious readers alike will find themselves drawn into Mary's tale, laughing all the while as she deals with everything life throws at her.
With interminable…


Book cover of Menno-Nightcaps: Cocktails Inspired by That Odd Ethno-Religious Group You Keep Mistaking for the Amish, Quakers or Mormons

Janelle Diller Author Of Never Enough Flamingos

From my list on those quirky Mennonites.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in Kansas and will forever have a soft spot in my heart for golden wheat fields, sunflower-filled ditches, and sunsets that explode colors on the horizon. I always knew I’d write a book set in Kansas, and I’d explore my long Mennonite linage and its seemingly unrealistic theology. Pacifism is a beautiful concept until you’re faced with protecting the people you love. As I grew older, I became more curious about larger, practical questions. It’s one thing to be a conscientious objector to war. It’s another thing to confront the cosmically dark evil of your neighbor. From that, Never Enough Flamingos was born.

Janelle's book list on those quirky Mennonites

Janelle Diller Why did Janelle love this book?

I love to cook, and given the passion Mennonites have for potlucks, this list wouldn’t be complete without a favorite cookbook recommendation. The trouble is, which one? There are so many classics. I grew up with the worn and scribbled-on pages of The Mennonite Community Cookbook and later the More-with-Less World Community Cookbook, but ultimately decided on Menno-Nightcaps because, well, I warned you this list is eclectic, right? This book is loaded with not just yummy, practical drink recipes, but loads of Mennonite history. My own husband wooed me with stories of his ancestor who supplied George Washington’s troops with whiskey. How could I not love a book like this? Trust me, it’ll be fun and you’ll never view Mennonites in quite the same way.  

By S.L. Klassen, Michael Hepher (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Menno-Nightcaps as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A satirical cocktail book featuring seventy-seven cocktail recipes accompanied by arcane trivia on Mennonite history, faith, and cultural practices.

At last, you think, a book of cocktails that pairs punny drinks with Mennonite history! Yes, cocktail enthusiast and author of the popular Drunken Mennonite blog Sherri Klassen is here to bring some Low German love to your bar cart. Drinks like Brandy Anabaptist, Migratarita, Thrift Store Sour, and Pimm’s Cape Dress are served up with arcane trivia on Mennonite history, faith, and cultural practices.

Arranged by theme, the book opens with drinks inspired by the Anabaptists of sixteenth-century Europe (Bloody…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Mennonites, Latin America, and Amish?

Mennonites 13 books
Latin America 122 books
Amish 31 books