Idea for this post and its title inspiration was generated by an AI language model (ChatGPT, OpenAI, 2024)
With the new year comes a lot of goal-setting. For me, it’s getting my dissertation done, or at least a draft by the end of the spring semester, working on my mapping project, and drumming up interest in my dissertation and future book by submitting articles and talking to people at conferences. One of my goals is to also gain a presence through my website, and post at least once per month here. And then there are, of course, my personal goals, like lifting heavier in the gym, developing a clearer sense of what my personal style is and getting the stuff out of my closet that doesn’t serve me anymore, spending more time with friends, and some custom projects around my new home.
But another type of goal that I see a lot, especially amongst those who are not engaged in a formal education program like a graduate degree, or are part of an institution of some kind, is learning. Learning new things, new skills, and new ideas… it all contributes to this idea of “new year, new me,” not that I endorse that phrase, but I know that almost everyone has heard it.
And how do we do most of our learning? Well, we either watch videos or read. But a task like that takes some work. Content that we seek to learn from has to come from a reputable source, or at least it should. Learning content should be backed by evidence. And above all, it should entertain us. Especially learning we are doing for our pleasure.
And so that is what I would like to share with you this month, a reading list and a watch list of some of my favorite informational, yet engaging, pieces of historical content. I think I am going to post this as two parts, though as I am typing this I am not sure if I want to make a watch list and a read list as separate posts, or some of each posted at the start and middle of the month. Maybe I won’t do anything like that at all. I am not sure here, but you will be by the next few sentences.
So here is what I decided to do, it’s two parts:
- This post will have my initial recommendations for you so that you can check them out right within this post.
- I will also be putting links to my recommendations in a Wakelet board. If you don’t know about Wakelet, let me first tell you that I love it, but also that it is essentially a hub where I can share “collections” with you, such as these links to books and videos. This will let me keep adding to it with things that I find, or even things that you suggest to me (provided that I can also recommend them in good faith of course). This will also let you save the Wakelet collection as a bookmark in your browser or your Wakelet account if you already have one and access it easily to see additions and find your favorites.
Let’s get to it!
Reads (or listens, as many of these books have audiobook versions)
- Colin Woodard, American Nations: Why state lines mean nothing when it comes to describing the makeup of the United States and how Woodard would rewrite the map based on their history.
- Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: The stories about American Empire over the last 150 years that you forgot, or may never have even heard about.
- Nikole Hannah-Jones (editor), The 1619 Project: This collection of essays distills some of the most important scholarship on the impact of slavery’s arrival on American shores.
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: A midwife’s daily diary made interesting and used as a lens into New England life in the early 1800s, from childbirth to murder.
- Alexis Coe, You Never Forget Your First: One of the wittiest history books I have ever read, taking on the task of telling the story of Washington’s life.
- Bartow J. Elmore, Citizen Coke: This is the book that inspired and guided by my own business history article on The Settlers of Catan, exploring the business model and history of the Atlanta-born drink.
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (including the For Young People Version): One of the best accessible primers to Indigenous History in the US.
- Susan Jonusas, Hell’s Half Acre: The unsolved mystery of America’s first serial killer family.
- Kate Moore, The Woman They Could Not Silence: The fight of one woman against a male-dominated world and her resulting commitment to an asylum in 1860s America.
Watch List
- William Cronon’s Presidential Address at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in 2013. An engaging story about storytelling and history.
William Cronon, President, 2012, Address delivered January 2013
- Remove or Revere? – A good debate about monuments and the history they “tell.” This is a great debate becuase it moves it beyond the context of just American monuments.
Revere or Remove? The Battle Over Statues, Heritage and History
- Vox on the United Daughters of the Confederacy
How Southern socialites rewrote Civil War history
- History Matters… and So Does Coffee – A series born during the pandemic between the National Council for History Education and Yale Professor and political scholar Joanne B. Freeman.
History Matters (…and so does coffee!)
Stay tuned for updates and additions via the Wakelet, linked to this button! 😀
Erica Anne Price 