Bibliography for HIST 103 DCE: Books, Films, Websites

This bibliography is not intended to be a comprehensive list of courses on early American history. It is, rather, a resource list specific to the course. Suggestions of additional resources for use and listing are welcome! The lists are in evolution, as we’re still adding and annotating titles.

Books: Suggestions for Reviews
Author	Title	Publication	Comments
Thelen	The Presence of the Past
McNeill	Mythistory
Crosby	The Columbian Exchange
Ambrose	Undaunted Courage
Rhonda	Lewis and Clark Among the Indians
Loewen, James W.	Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong	New Press, 1995 New York: Touchstone, 1996	Loewen argues that American history as traditionally taught is full of misconceptions, largely due to the textbook industry, but also because as a nation we suppress things we don’t want to hear about.
Trafzer, Clifford E., and Joel R. Hyer	Exterminate Them: Written Acccounts of the Murder, Rape and Slavery of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush, 1848-186	East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999
Winn, Kenneth H.	Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, 1830-1846	Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989
Faragher, John M.	Women and Men on the Overland Trail	New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979
Douglass, Frederick	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave	Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973
Jacobs, Harriet, and Lisa Barsky, Eds.	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself	West Berlin, NJ: Townsend Press, 2004
Washington, Margaret, Ed.	Narrative of Sojourner Truth	New York: Vintage Books, 1993
Johnson, Charles	Middle Passage	New York: Atheneum, 1990
Wright, Gavin	The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century	New York: Norton, 1978.
Peterson, Merrill D.	John Brown: The Legend Revisited	Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2004
Quarles, Benjamin	Allies for Freedom: Blacks and John Brown	New York: Oxford University Press, 1974
Wells, Damon	Stephen Douglas: The Late Years, 1857-1861	Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971
Johannsen, Robert W.	Lincoln, the South, and Slavery: The Political Dimension	Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993
Vetter, Charles E.	Sherman: Merchant of Terror, Advocate of Peace	Gretna, LA: Pelican, 1992
Gooding, James Henry	On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier's Civil War Letters from the Front	Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991
Singletary, Otis A.	Negro Militia and Reconstruction	Austin: University of Texas Press, 1957.
Oubre, Claude F.	Forty Acres and a Mule: the Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Land Ownership	Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978
Ingalls, Robert P.	Hoods: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan	Putnam, 1979.
Dougherty, Keith L.	Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation	Cambridge University Press, 2000
Barrow, Clyde	The Political and Economic Thought of Charles A. Beard	Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishing, 2000
Harper, John	American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy	Cambridge University Press, 2006
Goldwin, Robert	From Parchment to Power: How James Madison Used the Bill of Rights to Save the Constitution	AEI Press, 1977
Dale, Ronald	The Invasion of Canada: Battles of the War of 1812	Lorimar, 2001
Tucker, Spencer C., and Frank T. Reuter	The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, June 22, 1807	Naval Institute Press, 1996
Snowiss, Sylvia	Judicial Review and the Law of the Constitution	New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990
Miller, John C.	Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts	Boston: Little, Brown, 1951
Hofstadter, Richard	The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840	Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969
Crowgey, Henry G.	Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking	Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1971
Dowd, Gregory A.	A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815	Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992
Fehrenbacher, Don	The South and Three Sectional Crises	Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1980
Heidler, D.S. and J.T.	Old Hickory’s War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire	Baton Rouge: Lousiana University Press, 2003
Merk, Frederick	Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation	New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963
Remini, Robert Vincent	Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: A Study in the Growth of Presidential Power	New York: Norton, 1967
Brear, Holly Beachley	Inherit the Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Shrine	Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995
Griswold del Castillo, Richard	The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict	Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990
Lander, Ernest McPherson, Jr.	Reluctant Imperialists: Calhoun, the South Carolinians, and the Mexican War	Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980
Krieger, Leonard	Ranke: The Meaning of History	Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977
Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John	Letters from an American Farmer
Becker, Carl	Everyman His Own Historian	F.S. Crofts, 1935
Morgan, Louis Henry	The League of the Iroquois	Corinth, 1951
Kopp, Maureen	The Sacred Geography of the American Mound Builders	E. Mellen Press, 1990
Bancroft-Hunt, Norman	People of the Totem: The Indians of the Pacific Northwest	Putnam, 1979
Copland, Ian	The Burden of Empire: Perspectives on Imperialism and Colonialism	Oxford University Press, 1990
Raskin, Jonah	The Mythology of Imperialism: Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, and Joyce Cary	Random House, 1971
Jennings, Francis	The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest	University of North Carolina Press, 1975
Dunn, Mary Maples	William Penn: Politics and Conscience	Princeton University Press, 1967
Lawson, Murray G.	Fur: A Study of English Mercantilism	University of Toronto Press, 1943
Washburn, Wilcomb	The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion	University of North Carolina Press, 1957
Klein, Herbert S.	The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade	Princeton University Press, 1978
Becker, Carl	The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas	A.A. Knopf, 1942
Gummere, Richard Mott	Seven Wise Men of Colonial America	Harvard University Press, 1967
Cross, C.F.	Justin Smith Morrill: Father of the Land-Grant Colleges	East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999

Films: Suggestions for Reviews
Title	Production	Comments
Jefferson in Paris	Merchant Ivory Productions, 1995	Seems like everyone who views this film finds it troubling. A quiet film, layered with dialogs and actions that can be interpreted more than one way. The historical situation is Thomas Jefferson’s service as ambassador to France on behalf of the infant US republic. The interaction of public ideals and personal life is food for thought.
Birth of a Nation	Griffith Feature Films, 1915	David Wark Griffith was a cinematic genius. In this film his genius is applied toward glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy. The subject is the Reconstruction era, which Griffith interprets in line with the novel on which the film is based—The Clansman, by Dixon. This is a silent film, epic in scope.
Gone with the Wind	MGM, 1939
Ride with the Devil	1999
How the West Was Won	MGM, 1962
1492: Conquest of Paradise	Paramount, 1992	Truly a grim film, and (because of graphic violence) not for the faint of heart. Gerard Depardieu plays a Columbus who loses command of his lieutenants and the colonial situation of his own making, resulting in catastrophe both for him and for the natives of the New World.
Plymouth Adventure	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1952
The Crucible	20^th Century Fox	This latest film adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play dwells quite a bit on the sexual subplot, but it does lay out thoughtful issues pertaining to the persecution of alleged witches in Salem. A hint to viewers: the play, a product of the Cold War years, was about the Salem witch trials, but it also was intended to provide commentary on the Red-baiting of its own times.
The Last of the Mohicans	1992
The Alamo	Touchstone, 2004	Billy Bob Thornton is a hoot as Davy Crockett. Overall this treatment of the siege of the Alamo (there have been many; view and review an earlier one, if you wish) incorporates ambivalences absent from all earlier productions.
The Patriot	Columbia Tristar, 2000
The Buccaneers	1958
Gangs of New York	Miramax, 2002
Amistad	Dreamworks, 1997	The subject is a celebrated case having to do with the illegal slave trade in the early 19^th century. The freedom-seeking captives drive the action of the film; an aging John Quincy Adams comes in as the crusty sage who champions their cause.
John Paul Jones	1959
The New World	2005
Cabeza de Vaca	1991
Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale	1994
The Scarlet Letter	1979
Revolution	1985
The President’s Lady	1953
How the West Was Won
Gorgeous Hussy	1936
Master and Commander	2003