Thursday Reading and Recommendations is intended as bookish free-for-all, for the discussion and recommendation of all books historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
Asking for book recommendations on specific topics or periods of history
Newly published books and articles you're dying to read
Recent book releases, old book reviews, reading recommendations, or just talking about what you're reading now
Historiographical discussions, debates, and disputes
...And so on!
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion of history and books, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
How does David G. Chandler on the Duke of Marlborough hold up?
I am really curious about the settling of the west (in the US) and the early "explorers/pioneers". Can anyone recommend some books on that era.
I'll also settle for good fiction on the subject written at the time (1800's broadly but the earlier, the better) as an alternative way to see how they thought about themselves