Casey Michel Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Casey Michel

Just finished Anna Arutunyan's new "Hybrid Warriors" book, which might be the single best look at the tangled 2014-2022 relationship between Moscow and the Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. https://t.co/BXMfGrkXdY

Casey Michel

3. "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire," by @KatzOnEarth. Phenomenal blend of historic and contemporary reportage, and the legacies of American empire that are still ignored across American history.

Casey Michel

9. "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland," by Patrick Keefe. I was in Belfast earlier this year, touring the murals, and got to talking about this book with our guide. His review: "Who knew an American would write the best book about the Troubles?"

Casey Michel

2. "The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia," by Anna Reid. If you're looking for an introduction to Russia's grotesque colonial conquest of Siberia, this is it. Stories of Indigenous slaughter and survival—and hints of what may re-emerge as Putin continues his disaster.

Casey Michel

7. "Race and Manifest Destiny: Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism," by Reginald Horsman. Already 40 years old, this book seems ahead of its time. Academic, but completely annihilates America's expansionist mythology. A continent-wide exercise in ethnic cleansing.

Casey Michel

10. "Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power," by Philip Dwyer. I... don't understand the hagiography of Napoleon. At all. A tyrant, tossed from power *twice*, solely responsible for one of the greatest military debacles of the millennium. A pure disaster for France, and for Europe.

Casey Michel

5. "El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America," by @carrieegibson. Monumental reframing of American history and American expansionism, and how former Spanish colonial holdings play a far more outsized role in American trajectories than we realize.

Casey Michel

6. "Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers," by Doug Swanson. The past few years have seen spectacular revisionist reads on Texas history, but this might be the best of the bunch. Takes down this drunken, incompetent, white supremacist paramilitary.

Casey Michel

Bit on how Edward Said ignored Russian colonialism and Russian “Orientalism”: to Said, “the Russian variant might just as well have never existed.” https://t.co/DacqKDzMo0 https://t.co/rD9WT6bS2r

Casey Michel

8. "Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation," by Peter Cozzens. Reintroduces Tecumseh as one of the key North American figures of the 19th century—and just how close the U.S. was to watching its westward momentum go up in flames.