New Acquisitions to My Library

Lucky me received a generous Amazon gift card as a Christmas gift from my family. I used it to add a number of books that were on my "Wish List" to my personal library, which are finally starting to arrive in the mail each day. Is there anything much better than finding a book in your mailbox?

Books like Stephen Berry's All that Makes a Man: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South, which I read over a decade ago, stirred my interest in antebellum manhood and Southern honor studies. I'm hoping this one gives me some new things to think about.

Fredericksburg is one of my top three eastern theater battles to study. And George C. Rable's Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! is one of my all-time favorite books, but I have read excellent reviews on this one as well. I'm looking forward to historian and National Park Service Ranger O'Reilly's take on this December 1862 battle.

Studies on the domestic slave trade and the forced migrations of slaves to the Old Southwest has intrigued me for the past few years. Books like The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist are drawing more and more scholars to this important subject, who are presenting new interpretations. 

There are so many myths, tales, and misinformation floating around about the origins of the Ku Klux Klan. Therefore, I am looking forward to examining this author's take and seeing what evidence is used to tell the beginnings of this terrorist organization during Reconstruction.

Similar to the above mentioned Slavery and Forced Migration in the Antebellum South, Walter Johnson explores the internal slave trade and the expansion of the Cotton Kingdom in River of Dark Dreams. I learned a lot from Johnson's previous work, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, so I am sure this one will not disappoint either. 

Being always on the lookout for books about local history, the title to this one caught my attention, and since I am not too far from the book's location of focus, I am sure there many things I can learn and draw upon for work and for my personal knowledge. 

Just as there is much information about the Ku Klux Klan, there also is about the noted 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments. In 1989, the motion picture Glory brought significant attention to the 54th, and thus USCTs, but it also promoted some myths. I'm interested to read Edgerton's history of the 54th and 55th Infantries, and 5th Massachusetts Cavalry.

Well, I have to go. I have some serious reading to do.