Here are 100 books that Saving Yellowstone fans have personally recommended if you like
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Monuments and memorials pepper our public landscape. Many walk right by them, uncurious about who or what’s being honored. I can’t. I’m a historian. I’m driven to learn the substance of the American past, but I also want to know how history itself is constructed, not just by professionals but by common people. I’m fascinated by how “public memory” is interpreted and advanced through monuments. I often love the artistry of these memorial features, but they’re not mere decoration; they mutely speak, saying simple things meant to be conclusive. But as times change previous conclusions can unravel. I’ve long been intrigued by this phenomenon, writing and teaching about it for thirty years.
I was transfixed by Kelman’s story, masterfully, sympathetically narrated. It’s populated by few monuments, and the one squatting at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is modest and understated. Here even the place of those dark events was in dispute.
Blending history with a gripping account of the struggle over public memory, and centering Native people, Kelman chronicles the modern search for the site (and meaning) of one of the most gruesome acts of government violence in American history, at Sand Creek, where U.S. troops slaughtered more than 150 peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho campers (mostly women and children) in November 1864.
The Colorado Pioneer Association commemorated (and glorified) the sordid event in 1909 with a Denver monument cataloging Sand Creek as a Civil War battle. But a search for truth and reconciliation would challenge and remake this public memory, and Kelman is an unrivaled guide in that process.
In the early morning of November 29, 1864, with the fate of the Union still uncertain, part of the First Colorado and nearly all of the Third Colorado volunteer regiments, commanded by Colonel John Chivington, surprised hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho people camped on the banks of Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory. More than 150 Native Americans were slaughtered, the vast majority of them women, children, and the elderly, making it one of the most infamous cases of state-sponsored violence in U.S. history. A Misplaced Massacre examines the ways in which generations of Americans have struggled to come to…
For 30 years, my books, articles, and talks have warned the U.S. failure/refusal to work with Russia and the Europeans to forge a new system of global security after the Cold War could provoke a Russian nationalist backlash, a war between Moscow and Kyiv, and possibly major power conflict. My bookWorld War Trump warned that Trump could stage a coup. Toward an Alternative Transatlantic Strategy warned Biden’s support for Ukraine would provoke conflict with Russia. I have also written poems and novels on IR theory, plus two novels based on my experiences in China during the tumultuous years of 1988-89 and in France during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This well-researched book, using prime sources, is an objective and important history. It explains why Washington failed to forge a new European security order in working with Moscow at the end of the “first” Cold War.
Sarotte examines the question as to why Mikhail Gorbachev appeared to be promised by then-US Secretary of State James Baker (and other Western officials) that NATO membership would not expand beyond East Germany at the time of German unification. Just as importantly, Sarotte’s book examines why the US-proposed “Partnership for Peace”―which could have helped to establish a new system of security for eastern European states with Russian cooperation, in my view―was not pursued.
Instead, as I had argued in Dangerous Crossroads, Clinton opted to pursue the NATO “Self-Limitation” approach (no troops, no nuclear weapons), knowing full well that both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had warned that NATO’s expansion without strong Russian input…
A leading expert on foreign policy reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics in a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2021
"Sarotte has the receipts, as it were: her authoritative tale draws on thousands of memos, letters, briefs, and other once secret documents-including many that have never been published before-which both fill in and complicate settled narratives on both sides."-Joshua Yaffa, New Yorker
"The most engaging and carefully documented account of this period in East-West diplomacy currently available."-Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs
Prize-winning historian, M.E. Sarotte pulls back the curtain on the crucial decade between the fall of…
I’ve always been fascinated by power and how people use it; from the time I was tiny, I’ve loved reading about how people left their fingerprint on history. I now make my career as a presidential historian, and I’m committed to sharing this history with a broad public audience in books, opinion editorials, podcasts, and other media. In my experience, most people find history fascinating if they can learn about it in an interesting way. That’s my goal with all my work and the goal of the books I’ve recommended below!
The political parties can be a bit confusing as the names Republican and Democratic have been around for centuries, but hardly resemble the original parties at their formation. To Make Men Free is the best overview of the Grand Old Party, its many evolutions, and its important role in American history. It is also my favorite of the many books written by famed historian Heather Cox Richardson. To Make Men Freewould be a great gift for subscribers to Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American, or dads who are interested in politics.
When Abraham Lincoln helped create the Republican Party on the eve of the Civil War, his goal was to promote economic opportunity for all Americans, not just the slaveholding Southern planters who steered national politics. Yet, despite the egalitarian dream at the heart of its founding, the Republican Party quickly became mired in a fundamental identity crisis. Would it be the party of democratic ideals? Or would it be the party of moneyed interests? In the century and a half since, Republicans have vacillated between these two poles, with dire economic, political, and moral repercussions for the entire nation.In To…
I’ve always been fascinated by power and how people use it; from the time I was tiny, I’ve loved reading about how people left their fingerprint on history. I now make my career as a presidential historian, and I’m committed to sharing this history with a broad public audience in books, opinion editorials, podcasts, and other media. In my experience, most people find history fascinating if they can learn about it in an interesting way. That’s my goal with all my work and the goal of the books I’ve recommended below!
In Madison’s Hand, Bilder meticulously dissects James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention. Madison’s notes are widely considered to be the authoritative source on the Convention, but Bilder demonstrates that Madison revised, edited, obscured, and added to this record to suit his purposes. Carefully researched and smartly written, Madison’s Hand reveals the true story of the Convention and the creation of the Constitution. Perfect for the dads who are lawyers and Revolutionary and Founding history buffs.
Winner of the Bancroft Prize Winner of the James Bradford Best Biography Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Finalist, Literary Award for Nonfiction, Library of Virginia Finalist, George Washington Prize
James Madison's Notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention have acquired nearly unquestioned authority as the description of the U.S. Constitution's creation. No document provides a more complete record of the deliberations in Philadelphia or depicts the Convention's charismatic figures, crushing disappointments, and miraculous triumphs with such narrative force. But how reliable is this account?
"[A] superb study of the Constitutional Convention as selectively reflected in Madison's voluminous…
I am a social and legal historian of late 19th and early 20th Century Latin America, and the majority of my work is about the emergence of the middle class. I first got interested in researching dueling because I had the idea that the duel probably played a role in creating and enforcing a social dividing line between the upper elite and the middle class. But once I got immersed in the historical documents I realized how wrong my initial hypothesis had been, how little dueling had to do with social class, and how much it was about maintaining—or sometimes gaming for advantage—the norms of decorum in politics and the press.
This is one of the books that inspired and provided source material for the musical Hamilton. Freeman is a Pulitzer prize-winning historian of post-1776 United States. This masterful history of the early American republic shows how dueling needs to be understood as politics by other means, as part of the mad scramble for power and prestige in the context of never-ending “paper wars” in the partisan press. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I’ll never forget how much the cover art captured my imagination, and how brilliantly it reflects what you will find inside.
This book is not just about duels; it also covers political alliances, gossip, insults, and elections. But that is Freeman’s whole point, that they are all interconnected, and dueling is just one piece of a larger picture.
A major reassessment of American political culture in the days of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr
"[A] landmark study of Hamilton and the founders."-Jeff Sharlet, Chronicle of Higher Education
"Demands the attention of everyone with a serious interest in the history of American politics."-Pauline Maier, Washington Post
In this extraordinary book, Joanne Freeman offers a major reassessment of political culture in the early years of the American republic. By exploring both the public actions and private papers of key figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton, Freeman reveals an alien and profoundly unstable political world grounded on the…
I grew up a farm kid and then worked as a park ranger fresh out of college. This background draws me to the history of American preservation, where so much that seems natural also has deep cultural roots. I find the American South—with its combination of irony and tragedy, beauty, and flaws—the most fascinating place on earth to study. Or maybe I’m just pulling for the home team.
This history of Providence Canyon in southwestern Georgia explores a seemingly ironic state park: one dedicated to preserving a network of massive erosion gullies formed by poor cotton farming. But Providence Canyon is so much more than ironic, as this book beautifully illustrates. Yes, improvident farming harmed the land—as was the case across much of the South—but the spectacular gullies of Stewart County came from the intersection of human abuse and terrifyingly fragile soil structures. And they are somehow sublimely beautiful, despite their grim past. The park is perhaps the perfect place to witness the way in which human and natural actions are always tied together. Come for the gullies, stay for the lessons!
Providence Canyon State Park, also known as Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon," preserves a network of massive erosion gullies allegedly caused by poor farming practices during the nineteenth century. It is a park that protects the scenic results of an environmental disaster. While little known today, Providence Canyon enjoyed a modicum of fame in the 1930s. During that decade, local boosters attempted to have Providence Canyon protected as a national park, insisting that it was natural. At the same time, national and international soil experts and other environmental reformers used Providence Canyon as the apotheosis of human, and particularly southern, land…
As a kid I loved visiting the local history museum, wandering through the dusty displays of taxidermy buffalo and medieval helmets. I enjoyed the creepy feeling I’d get when I stood next to the wax figures and looked at their frozen faces and not-quite-right hair. As I grew older, I became more interested in seeking out weird and unusual history, and it became a passion throughout my teenage years and into adulthood. Now, I’m able to combine my love of the creepy and occult with historical research. I teach U.S. history at SUNY Brockport, I co-produced Dig: A History Podcast, and I am the co-author of my new book (below).
I really love this book because I have been known to go on a “haunted” history tour now and again and I love a good ghost story. However, I realize that sometimes the true stories from our past are more scary than the fantastic ones.
This book particularly hit home because it covers quite a few ghost stories from New Orleans that I am very familiar with. However, those “spooky” ghost stories become truly frightening when contextualized by Miles.
In this book Tiya Miles explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of ""ghost tours,"" frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by routinely relying on stories of enslaved black specters. But who are these ghosts? Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. ""Dark tourism"" often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and…
I grew up a farm kid and then worked as a park ranger fresh out of college. This background draws me to the history of American preservation, where so much that seems natural also has deep cultural roots. I find the American South—with its combination of irony and tragedy, beauty, and flaws—the most fascinating place on earth to study. Or maybe I’m just pulling for the home team.
What’s not to love about a book that starts with the release of invasive starlings and ends with Donald Trump’s New York real estate deals? (And along the way describes a thousand equally fascinating events.) Throughout this richly detailed history of the nation’s most famous urban park, Rosenzweig and Blackmar always keep everyday New Yorkers in focus, highlighting how they shaped the park as surely as did urban elites. The result is one of the city’s most democratic spaces.
This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people-the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation; the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it; and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to…
I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife.
I love nonfiction adventure books that immerse you in the details of an adventure while providing enough background information to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives of an era. In the mid-19th century, Paul du Chaillu spent years in Western Africa tracking down the njena, the mythical beast. This book makes for interesting reading as the author weaves the true-life adventure story of the discovery of the gorilla with Darwin’s evolutionary debate,and the challenges a Victorian-era scientist faced to prove his credibility.
In 1856, Paul Du Chaillu ventured into the African jungle in search of a mythic beast, the gorilla. After wild encounters with vicious cannibals, deadly snakes, and tribal kings, Du Chaillu emerged with 20 preserved gorilla skins—two of which were stuffed and brought on tour—and walked smack dab into the biggest scientific debate of the time: Darwin's theory of evolution. Quickly, Du Chaillu's trophies went from objects of wonder to key pieces in an all-out intellectual war. With a wide range of characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.T Barnum, Thackeray, and of course, Charles Darwin, this is a…
I was browsing a bookstore around 1996 when I spotted a book about Lewis and Clark. I took a look, saw a list of the members of the expedition, and realized I hardly knew anything about those individuals. I wondered who they were and what happened to them during and after their trek across the country. I started reading books and articles and making trips to conventions or archives in places like St. Louis and Philadelphia. It has been a great twenty-five years, and my passion for Lewis and Clark has never ebbed. I hope you enjoy the books discussed here as much as I have.
This thoughtful, compelling, 442-page essay by humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson is simply my favorite Lewis and Clark book. Clay begins with a quote from Hamlet, and in the next few pages mention everyone from Lewis—“an eccentric, high strung, and sometimes-troubled man” but also “a man of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity” to John Donne, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong, to Lennon and McCartney. This is a highly personal, highly readable, free-ranging volume that offers new and fascinating insights into both Lewis and Clark and their westward trek. I highly recommend it.
Meriwether Lewis commanded the most important exploration mission in the early history of the United States. Clay S. Jenkinson takes a fresh look at Lewis, not to offer a paper cutout hero but to describe and explain a hyperserious young man of great complexity who found the wilderness of Upper Louisiana as exacting as it was exhilarating.
Jenkinson sees Lewis as a troubled soul before he left St. Charles, Missouri, in May 1804. His experiences in lands "upon which the foot of civilized man had never trodden" further fractured his sense of himself. His hiring William Clark as his "partner…
