5 Books for your Prime Day

Works that have influenced my own over the last five years

I began Historians At The Movies in 2018, about a year after I moved back to Florida to write my doctoral dissertation. In the five years since I’ve defended that dissertation, served as an ethnographer for the Seminole Tribe of Florida and am currently doing some contract work as a subject matter expert for Kituwah Services, LLC, which is owned and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

I think most of you know me from my work on twitter. I rarely spoke about my time serving the Seminole Tribe of Florida mostly because I never wanted to seem like I was using the Tribe to further my own career. That said, those three years were the most amazing experience I could have had and I love the Tribe deeply to this day. My time there, aside from being a father to my boys, is the thing I am proudest of in my life.

It also offered me the opportunity to think about my work in different ways and because of that I became more and more interested in different aspects of history. I wrote my master’s dissertation on warfare between Creeks and Choctaws between 1766 and 1776 and arrived at Minnesota thinking I would do more of the same, only maybe down in Florida. But a conversation with a colleague, Jimmy Sweet—one of the kindest and most insightful humans you’ll ever encounter—convinced me that what I was actually interestd in was the interplay between Indigeous peoples, Europeans, Africans, animals, and the environment. Talking to Tribal Members and settler cowfolk in the years since then raised the stakes in telling the stories I wanted to tell. Added gravity to the work, if you will.

The problem with Florida, if you listen to tomorrow’s pod, is that even though it is arguably the single most important state in today’s geopolitical climate, there’s still relatively little written about it. That forced me to go outward to think about differing aspects of my work. So without further ado, here are five books about people and the environment published within the last five years, just in time for Prime Day. They are all excellent scholarship and accessible for everyone (I don’t read boring histories—they piss me off and I can usually find what I’m looking for from someone who knows how to communicate).¹ In no particular order:

Bathsheba Demuth, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. This is a tremendous book that injects the reader right into spaces contested Indigenous peoples, the United States, and Russia. Like many of the books you’ll read below, this history grounds itself in concerns over an uncertain global future.

Emily O’Gorman, Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-Than-Human Histories of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin. Australia is a REALLY long way from Florida. But is it? I mean, like Australia, everything in Florida (alligators, pythons, our governor) wants to kill you. Further, the settler-colonial histories and concerns over the environment and global warming are remarkably similar between the two nations. It’s good to step out of the box and look at things from another angle.

Andrea Geiger, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867–1945. This book emerges from UNC Press’ David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands and for good reason. This book highlights how Indigenous people in the North Pacific constructed borderlands and navigated those constructed by competing empires in the not too distant past.

Rick McIntyre, The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone's Underdog. I’ve written about this before. I’d wanted to refrain from listing anything I’d previously recommended but if we are to consider how animals exert their agency to engage both the environment and people then we need to think about different ways to portray them on the page. I read this over Christmas break and found myself rushing to get back to the house to finish chapters. This is hands-down the most riveting book I’ve read in years.

Jack E. Davis, The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. Ok, so this one actually does feature some Florida. It is a stunning portrait of the Gulf of Mexico ranging from prehistory (God I hate that word) to today. One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever seen- I used to listen to the audible version before I’d write my dissertation just to get “in the zone.” Sometimes it feels like a David Attenborough documentary. You’ll love the stories of how tarpon fishing helped to develop new communities along the coast and read in horror about the destruction of bird rookeries that mirrored those of bison on the Great Plains. You won’t ever take the Gulf of Mexico for granted again. Get the hardcover. This book is big.

Jeremy Zallen, American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial Light, 1750-1865. Yes, I know this is book six of my five-book list. No, I do not care. This book is awesome. This book speaks to the commodification of the environment to create a world in which we can see in the dark. It’s incredibly complex, sometimes ruthlessly violent, and an absolute page turner.

Alright, that’ll work for now. A few influences on me maybe to influence you, too. Stay tuned tomorrow for another book that you absolutely do not want to miss.

1. I’m not being compensated for any of these. Just sharing with friends. :)