Here are 84 books that Indian Paths of Pennsylvania fans have personally recommended if you like
Indian Paths of Pennsylvania.
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I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my dad loved history and always tried to stop at any battlefield or historic sign that happened to be within his field of vision. My mom was a passionate researcher of our family ancestry and I spent our childhood looking in cemeteries for specific names and gravestones. When I was ten years old, we joined a living history reenactment group that portrayed everyday life in the 1750s, and I was immediately hooked. I began researching about our group known as “Captain William Trent’s Company” and after almost thirty years of living and breathing summer weekends at 18th Century historic sites, the pages of Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent’s Fort came to life. I picked these five books because I want future readers to be transported like I was when I first read them.
Every author, when writing nonfiction about a particular time period, always hopes that one day readers will read their book and will declare it the best book written on the subject. For me, Dr. Preston’s book was the “mic drop” about a certain disaster in the backwoods of western Pennsylvania in the summer of 1755 that changed the life of a young George Washington and history altogether. His vast research on the battle inspired me to uncover every detail as I began my own journey in writing my first nonfiction book.
On July 9, 1755, British regulars and American colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock, commander in chief of the British Army in North America, were attacked by French and Native American forces shortly after crossing the Monongahela River and while making their way to besiege Fort Duquesne in the Ohio Valley, a few miles from what is now Pittsburgh. The long line of red-coated troops struggled to maintain cohesion and discipline as Indian warriors quickly outflanked them and used the dense cover of the woods to masterful and lethal effect. Within hours, a powerful British army was…
I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my dad loved history and always tried to stop at any battlefield or historic sign that happened to be within his field of vision. My mom was a passionate researcher of our family ancestry and I spent our childhood looking in cemeteries for specific names and gravestones. When I was ten years old, we joined a living history reenactment group that portrayed everyday life in the 1750s, and I was immediately hooked. I began researching about our group known as “Captain William Trent’s Company” and after almost thirty years of living and breathing summer weekends at 18th Century historic sites, the pages of Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent’s Fort came to life. I picked these five books because I want future readers to be transported like I was when I first read them.
This book to me was my first in-depth look at an Indian agent and trader during the 1750s and it didn’t disappoint. Though Christopher Gist’s life was cut short by illness, his contribution was nonetheless remarkable and allowed me to explore my own research to all the people Gist interacted with during his lifetime. I also credit the author for making the book so easy to read for anyone learning about Christopher Gist for the first time.
I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my dad loved history and always tried to stop at any battlefield or historic sign that happened to be within his field of vision. My mom was a passionate researcher of our family ancestry and I spent our childhood looking in cemeteries for specific names and gravestones. When I was ten years old, we joined a living history reenactment group that portrayed everyday life in the 1750s, and I was immediately hooked. I began researching about our group known as “Captain William Trent’s Company” and after almost thirty years of living and breathing summer weekends at 18th Century historic sites, the pages of Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent’s Fort came to life. I picked these five books because I want future readers to be transported like I was when I first read them.
When I first found this gem at a colonial market fair, I was just overjoyed to read about a figure who fought with young George Washington at the beginning of the French and Indian War. When I began reading it, it exceeded all expectations. Here was a surprise adventure saga that kept me involved until the very last page. The best part was it is all true! I remember reading it and saying, wow this story should be made into a movie.
I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my dad loved history and always tried to stop at any battlefield or historic sign that happened to be within his field of vision. My mom was a passionate researcher of our family ancestry and I spent our childhood looking in cemeteries for specific names and gravestones. When I was ten years old, we joined a living history reenactment group that portrayed everyday life in the 1750s, and I was immediately hooked. I began researching about our group known as “Captain William Trent’s Company” and after almost thirty years of living and breathing summer weekends at 18th Century historic sites, the pages of Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent’s Fort came to life. I picked these five books because I want future readers to be transported like I was when I first read them.
When I first heard about trader George Croghan, I heard many historians call him “King of the traders”. Well, this book explored the man behind the myth and brought forth to light many details not known before about Croghan, including the name of his horse. Wainwright’s attention to detail in this biography only showcased his great research, and his hard work paid off. By the time he finished this book, he had for the first time unearthed the final resting place of one of the most notorious traders of Pennsylvania during the 18th Century.
George Croghan--land speculator, Indian trader, and prominent Indian agent--was a man of fascinating, if dubious, character whose career epitomized the history of the West before the Revolution. This study is based on Croghan's long-lost personal papers that were found by the author in an old Philadelphia attic.
Originally published in 1959.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both…
Strangers in a strange
land – an evocative phrase that originated in “Exodus” (the one by Moses, not
Leon Uris) and has echoed within my own life. As a diplomat, I lived nearly
fourteen years overseas and know the particular dislocation of trying to make a
new life in a country not my own. This experience forms the center of my four
published novels. It’s also the theme of The Hero’s Journey a story at the
heart of every culture; the hero sets off toward unknown lands and comes back
transformed, as did I. Here’s my list of the five greatest novels about
strangers in a strange land.
I remember as a kid enjoying the movie based on the book.
Though fiction, the tale is inspired by the experiences of many whites captured by American Indians and raised among them. In this short, well-paced novel, True Boy, a captive of the Lenape tribe since age four, is forcibly returned to his white family. He soon yearns to return to the freedom he knew with the Lenape.
I was raised on Westerns and developed a fascination with American Indians that this story addresses well. A fine novel about those who are fated to be strangers wherever they go.
A beautifully illustrated edition of a novel that has enthralled young American readers for generations. It is the story of John Cameron Butler-captured as a small child in a raid on the Pennsylvania frontier by the Indian tribe Lenni-Lenape. Adopted by the great warrior Cuyloga and renamed True Son, he has spent 11 years living and thinking of himself as fully Indian. But when the tribe signs a treaty that requires them to return their white captives, 15-year-old True Son is returned against his will to the family he had long forgotten, and to a life that he no longer…
I became a historian of the American Revolution back in the early 1970s and have been working on that subject ever since. Most of my writings pivot on national politics, the origins of the Constitution, and James Madison. But explaining why the Revolution occurred and why it took the course it did remain subjects that still fascinate me.
The story of how the Continental Army suffered bitterly through the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge has been the subject of many books and the inspiration for many a patriotic myth. In this well-researched history, Bodle dispels many of those myths and carefully explains why the army had to stay so close to Philadelphia, when normally it would have moved further to the interior of Pennsylvania and sent many of its troops home for the winter. He provides a sophisticated account of the relationship between military needs and civilian politics, one that broadens our understanding of the Revolution.
Of the many dramatic episodes of the American Revolution, perhaps none is more steeped in legend than the Valley Forge winter. Paintings show Continentals huddled around campfires and Washington kneeling in the frozen woods, praying for his army's deliverance. To this day schoolchildren are taught that Valley Forge was the "turning point of the Revolution"-the event that transformed a ragged group of soldiers into a fighting army. But was Valley Forge really the "crucible of victory" it has come to represent in American history? Now, two hundred and twenty-five years later, Wayne Bodle has written…
I became a historian of the American Revolution back in the early 1970s and have been working on that subject ever since. Most of my writings pivot on national politics, the origins of the Constitution, and James Madison. But explaining why the Revolution occurred and why it took the course it did remain subjects that still fascinate me.
We think of the American victories at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781 as the decisive battles of the war (and so, in a sense, they were). But in this Pulitzer Prize winner, Fischer makes a strong case that George Washington’s surprising victories at Trenton and Princeton were just as momentous, keeping “the Cause” alive at a moment when the Continental Army was on the verge of dissolution. Fischer provides a vivid account of the flow of battle and the key decisions that gave the Americans their advantage.
Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia.
Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington-and many other Americans-refused to let the Revolution die. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a…
David DeKok became interested in environmental disasters in his native Michigan in 1974, when PBB, a fire-retardant chemical, was accidentally mixed with animal feed, entered the food chain, and then most people in the state, probably including himself. As a journalist in Pennsylvania, he wrote extensively about the Centralia mine fire and the aftermath of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and is the author of four books. He tends to write about small towns and small-town people in crisis.
While this is not a comprehensive history of the TMI accident and its aftermath—none exists––you can happily read this book and understand the seriousness of what happened. It is not encumbered with anti-nuclear ideology, like some of the books written immediately after the accident were. It has many photos, a glossary of nuclear terms, and an index.
It was 5 a.m. at the nuclear power plant on an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River. Suddenly an alarm shrieked. Something was going wrong inside the plant. Within minutes human error and technical failure triggered the worst nuclear power accident in the United States and within hours, the eyes of the world were on Three Mile Island. Wilborn Hampton transports the readers to this pivotal moment in American history, telling the hour-by-hour story of covering the nuclear accident as a U.P.I. (United Press International) reporter. His fascinating account will compel readers to consider one of the most…
I love historical fiction because it’s the next best thing to the invention of time travel. Books can immerse you in a time and a place in a way that comics and movies can only gesture at. For books likeNever SleepI even make sure to cook the foods my characters are eating, to make sure the era is evoked for the readers in all five sense.I love fantasy and science fiction as the next person, but the idea of transporting people to times and placesthat actually happened, to the best of my skill as a dramatist and researcher, is a challenge I find irresistible as an author.
A direct inspiration on my book, this is a great espionage thriller set in Philadelphia about a disgraced Revolution-era spy who gets hired by Alexander Hamilton to help against his arch-enemy, Thomas Jefferson, and finds his path intersecting with a farmwife standing up against a frontier uprising.
Liss is a master of the historical form (and a friend, full disclosure!)
America, 1787. Ethan Saunders, once among General Washington’s most valued spies, is living in disgrace after an accusation of treason cost him his reputation. But an opportunity for redemption comes calling when Saunders’s old enemy, Alexander Hamilton, draws him into a struggle with bitter rival Thomas Jefferson over the creation of the Bank of the United States.
Meanwhile, on the western Pennsylvania frontier, Joan Maycott and her husband, a Revolutionary War veteran, hope for a better life and a chance for prosperity. But the Maycotts’ success on an isolated frontier attracts the brutal attention of men who threaten to destroy…
I fell in love with quirky, funny, female protagonists early in my reading life, starting with Ramona Quimby and her unique way of seeing the world. As a kid, I always felt different, you know? I was sensitive, shy, and observant, and I delighted in finding characters in books who also bucked up against what I thought of as typical. As a writer, I love writing interesting, unconventional women, and I love using humor to elevate my characters’ voices. I think humor is one of the best ways to establish voice and also, paradoxically, to navigate tragedy. I hope to write many more quirky, funny female characters in future books.
I laughed out loud reading Sara Pritchard’s Crackpots, the story of spunky Ruby Reese and her complicated coming-of-age. This book was a huge influence on the structure of my own novel. Pritchard plays with chronology and point of view in a way that made me think, wow, I didn’t know you could do that. And then, ooh, I want to do that. Lyrical, detailed, and hilarious, this ranks as one of my all-time faves.
When we first meet Ruby Reese she’s a spunky kid in a cowgirl hat, tap dancing her way through a slightly off-kilter 1950s childhood. With an insomniac mother and a demolitions-expert father, her entire family is what the residents of her small town would call "a bunch of crackpots." Despite the dramas of her upbringing, Ruby matures into a creative, introspective, and wholly beguiling woman. But her adulthood is marked by complex relationships and romantic missteps -- three unsuitable marriages, dramatic crushes, the complicated love between siblings. As Sara Pritchard deftly guides us through Ruby's story, from the present to…
