Books like The Crowded Hour

David McCullough is one of my favorite authors of history, and Mornings on Horseback is, in my opinion, one of his best works.

McCullough introduces us to the young Theodore Roosevelt, from early childhood to early adulthood. Born to a Southern mother and a father who would later contribute heavily to the Union cause, he grew up in a mansion in New York City but spent considerable time ranching in the Badlands of North Dakota.

Teddy Roosevelt was a fascinating man with contradictions and character, the perfect subject for a masterful biography.

The middle book of Morris’ definitive biography of Roosevelt (following The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and preceding Colonel Roosevelt) brought me into the White House along with 42-year-old TR as he was thrust into the presidency after William McKinley’s assassination in 1901.

Thus begins an administration like nothing the country had ever seen or likely will ever see again. Morris takes what could be simply a dry accounting of Roosevelt’s accomplishments—and failures—in office and makes them into a story that’s almost like a novel. If you’ve ever wondered why Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore, this book will tell you why.

Over a century later, his accomplishments still greatly impact American life, and not just in the area of conservation, for which he is perhaps most remembered. Way ahead of his time on things like civil rights and women’s suffrage, TR was not afraid to take on the entrenched political… show more.

“Far and away, life's best prize is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” I loved this book because it tells us exactly what we should be doing now: rolling up our sleeves and getting into the arena. The federal bureaucracy of the early 20th century was smaller but no less entrenched than it is here in the 21st. And Congress was, if anything, even harder to deal with then than it is now (despite the lack of TV cameras).

How can any president hope to get anything important accomplished? TR shows us how. His instructions to his cabinet secretaries often include three words: “I want results.” He also shows us how to work with, and sometimes around or even through, the titans of industry to build the economy and avoid labor strife. This book should be a must-read for anybody who wants to lead anything, be it… show more.

I picked up this book while doing my “trace of TR” trip out West with my brother in 2011. We rode through the Badlands on horseback and saw the site of Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch, even the bar in Wibaux, where he knocked out a bully with a one-two combination.

Aadland, a Montana rancher, and TR aficionado decided to follow the paths of Roosevelt’s ranching days and hunting expeditions on foot and horseback, the way Roosevelt did himself in the 1880s. TR often credited his time in the Badlands for making him into the man who became a president.

What is there about this land that has such an impact? Having ridden there myself, I can understand a little, but Aadland’s experience as a modern rancher lends a context that really helps us understand this vital period of Roosevelt’s life.

What were the politics of the Union army during the grinding years of the war? How did fighting soldiers, one slice of the complexity of the northern population, feel about the Union and the rising questions of slavery and emancipation? And how was this opinion shaped by a generally conservative officer corps, especially the West Point elite who had trained and served with men who were now leading the Confederate army?

In a prize-winning book, Zachery Fry carefully examines these questions in the Army of the Potomac. He found a consensus on union and a great gradient of opinion on slavery. West Pointers suppressed antislavery views, while antislavery opinion grew in formations led by men coming from the ranks of state militias, either already inclined toward abolitionism or radicalized by their experience of the realities of slavery in the South.

In the end, what unified many Union soldiers in the… show more.

Barry Posen is a civilian expert in U.S. defense issues at MIT. This book influenced lots of foreign policy experts who have come around to accept the argument of Restraint that the United States ought to radically reduce its military commitments abroad, notably in the Persian Gulf. The book is a key source for my own because Posen shows why the U.S. military presence there has no real effect on the security of oil supply, threats to which are routinely and wildly exaggerated. Posen believes, therefore, that something like “prestige” or acting like a superpower because it can, better explains that expansive and wasteful military posture. 

Although not technically about the Pearl Harbor attack, Those Angry Days is an excellent companion to understand the mood in America in those months before the attack. While Grew was focused on avoiding an almost inevitable conflict between Japan and the United States, Olson shows that Americans in general and President Roosevelt in particular were far more focused on whether and how to engage in the ongoing conflict in Europe.

This book took me on a journey with a group of unlikely heroes, starting with their decision to enlist to fight in the war, following them through their training as paratroopers, and ending the conflict. Like many World War II veterans, they were volunteers. But the anticipation leading up to D-Day and the hell they went through in the woods of Bastogne was more than anyone could have ever expected.

Few histories of World War II hit me as hard as this one. As a child of the 1960s and 1970s, the war has always fascinated me. I’d read about the strategy, the epic battles, and the atrocities committed by the Axis Powers, but I’ve returned to this book many times over the past thirty years.

I think this is a particularly strong book because it provides details about the Confederate decision-making process that I have not read elsewhere.

The interpretation of the historical sources is also outstanding. Glatthaar clarifies the thinking of Confederate leaders about important issues, such as the raising of armies and their provisioning.

The book helped shape my understanding of the challenges Davis and Lee faced and the solutions they undertook to solve them.

Herdegen’s fairly new history of the Iron Brigade, published in 2012, rightfully supplants Alan Nolan’s classic history, The Iron Brigade.

Published some 60 years after Nolan’s history and coming in at 656 pages, Herdegen is able to include previously unpublished archival material, letters, photos, journals, and other primary sources. Where Nolan’s history basically stops after the battle of Gettysburg, Herdegen’s book tells the history of the Iron Brigade all the way to Appomattox and beyond; including information about memorial and reunion activity.

Herdegen’s extension of the story of the Iron Brigade into the 1864 Overland campaign through Petersburg and Appomattox provides an important element to its story that has been given short shrift in many of the previous works on the Iron Brigade.

As somebody who tends to use too many quotations in my writing, I appreciate that Herdegen frequently uses quotes. I like hearing the “voice” and reading… show more.