Mark R. Cheathem's Blog, page 2
October 23, 2023
It Takes a Village
As you can see, I found a nice surprise waiting for me on Friday. It’s always nice to hold in completed physical form what has so far only appeared on screen or in marked-up printouts. The old adage “it takes a village” certainly applies when it comes to publishing a book. It’s why I always …
October 4, 2023
Books for Spring 2024
Historical Methods Michael J. Salevouris and Conal Furay, The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide, 4th ed. (Wiley Blackwell, 2015) ISBN 9781118745441 Jill Lepore, The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (Princeton Univ. Press, 2011) ISBN 9780691153001 Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th …
September 8, 2023
The Origin of Who Is James K. Polk?
Ultimately, I arrived at the same conclusion with which I started: the 1844 presidential election was an overlooked, yet crucial, step move toward the Civil War.
March 20, 2023
Review of Lay This Body Down
This is the Gideon Stoltz mystery I’ve been waiting for. The first two installments in the series, A Stranger Here Below (reviewed here) and Nighthawk’s Wing (reviewed here), were interesting and suspenseful in their own right, but Charles Fergus has pulled everything together in Lay This Body Down. This third book sees Stoltz wrestling with …
February 28, 2023
Books for Fall 2023
Historical Methods Michael J. Salevouris and Conal Furay, The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide, 4th ed. (Wiley Blackwell, 2015) ISBN 9781118745441 Jill Lepore, The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (Princeton Univ. Press, 2011) ISBN 9780691153001 Kate L. Turabian, Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers, 5th ed. (University of …
February 27, 2023
Book Cover for Who Is James K. Polk?
After a much longer time than I wanted or expected, my newest book is scheduled to come out later this year. Entitled Who Is James K. Polk? The Presidential Election of 1844, it is part of the University Press of Kansas’ American Presidential Elections series. It includes coverage of all five presidential candidates in 1844—Polk, …
October 4, 2022
Books for Spring 2023
Introduction to Historical Methods Michael J. Salevouris et al., The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide, 5th ed. (Wiley Blackwell, 2022) ISBN 9781119569190 James M. Banner Jr., The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History (Yale University Press, 2021) ISBN 9780300238457 Kate L. Turabian, Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers, 5th ed. (University of Chicago …
July 30, 2022
Review of Nighthawk’s Wing
In 2019, I reviewed A Stranger Here Below by Charles Fergus, the first entry in his Gideon Stoltz Historical Mysteries series. The sequel, entitled Nighthawk’s Wing, came out last year. In this book, Stoltz investigates the murder of a woman accused of witchcraft. Fergus keeps the reader guessing as to the guilty party, and his …
February 23, 2022
Books for Fall 2022
American Presidency MaryAnne Borrelli, The Politics of the President’s Wife (Texas A&M University Press, 2011) ISBN 978-1603442855 Mark R. Cheathem, The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2018) ISBN 978-1421425986 Andrew S. Moore, ed., Evangelicals and Presidential Politics: From Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump (LSU Press, 2021) ISBN 978-0807174340 …
Did the Rothschild Family Try To Kill Andrew Jackson?
Xaviant Haze’s The Suppressed History of American Banking: How Big Banks Fought Jackson, Killed Lincoln, and Caused the Civil War is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. The main argument is that the Rothschild banking family caused the War of 1812 to make money from it, fought Andrew Jackson to preserve the Second …
