Books

By the Dim and Flaring Lamps (Published 1990 by Library Research Associates, Inc., Monroe, N.Y., ISBN: 0-912526-46-7)

I edited and annotated my great-great-great-grandfather's Civil War diary. If you are looking for gripping battle action, you'll be disappointed. If you are interested in what an intelligent, quite literate Union infantryman experienced in the Indiana 10th Volunteer Infantry, Army of the Cumberland, this may be for you! 

Read an excerpt here.

This is a small publisher, in a small town (that's the whole address!) so some book stores may not be too anxious to order this book. You may be able order it from barnesandnoble.com. You can also order it directly from the publisher. 

For The Defense Of Themselves And The State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right To Keep And Bear Arms (Published 1994 by Greenwood Publishing, Westport, Conn., ISBN: 0-275-94913-3)

This is the authoritative history of how the courts have interpreted the meaning of the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn't just cover the judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also the analogous guarantees contained in most of the state constitutions. 

Read an excerpt here.

Greenwood Publishing Group has a webpage from which you can order this book. You should be able to order it through most bookstores, but because it's a scholarly work, you may have some difficulty ordering it through through local chain bookstore. They can do it -- if they want to do it.

Update: It was cited in the recent federal district court decision USA v. Emerson (N.D. Texas 1999), and in the Washington Supreme Court decision  State v. Sieyes, 225 P.3d 995 (Wash. 2010).

Firing Back (Published 1995 by Krause Publishing, Iola, Wisc., ISBN: 0-87341-344-X)

This is a guide to political activism aimed at the average American gun owner. It has sections on effective political activism that would be useful regardless of your cause, and chapters that dissect conventional wisdom and arguments with respect to gun control. I'm a former supporter of what is popularly called "gun control," so don't be so sure that you're not interested in it!

Read an excerpt here.

You can order this book through Amazon.com.

Black Demographic Data, 1790-1860: A Sourcebook (Published 1995 by Greenwood Publishing, Westport, Conn., ISBN: 0-313-30243-X) 

This is a reference work on black population distribution, both free and slave, by state and region. It also includes 20,000 words about the significance and accuracy of the census data; the process by which both manumission and abolition brought about the end of slavery in the "free" states; the continuing controversy about black disabilities and the 1840 census; and legal restrictions on black migration within the United States.

See the table of contents, preface, the first chapter, a few pages of graphs and tables from the book, and the bibliography here.

You can purchase this book through barnesandnoble.com or directly through Greenwood Press.

Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling,  Southern Violence, and Moral Reform (Published September 1999 by Greenwood Publishing, Westport, Conn., ISBN: 0-275-96615-1)

This book examines why Southern states took the lead in the adoption of laws regulating the sale and carrying of concealed weapons before the Mexican War.  While many of the antebellum weapons laws were associated with the maintenance of slavery, the principle objective of these particular laws had nothing to do with race, but were an attempt to solve the severe problems of "honor violence" associated with the back country culture of the South.

See the table of contents, introduction, and the first chapter here.

You can order it from barnesandnoble.com. 

Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Published January 2007 by Nelson Current, ISBN: 1-595-55069-0)

This book examines the development of a distinctively American gun culture to 1840 with its implications for the concept of citizenship based on the duty to militia service. It also demonstrates that the widely publicized and accepted claims of now former Professor Michael Bellesiles of Emory University were not simply wrong, but intentional fraud.

Armed America is available in bookstores everywhere or online at Amazon.com.  It is also available in ebook form for the Kindle.

Syes

My Brother Ron: A Personal and Social History of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill (Published in July 2012 by CreateSpace and Amazon)

My Brother Ron: A Personal and Social History of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill is both the story of my older brother's descent into madness, and a history of how and why the United States (and eventually, most other Western countries) abandoned the old system of caring for the severely mentally ill, leading to widespread homelessness, increases in violence, and the general degradation of urban life.

You can read an excerpt here.

Available from Amazon in both paperback ($10.95) and Kindle editions ($1.49), and from Barnes & Noble in paperback ($10.95) and Nook ($1.49) editions.

What historic evidence is there about the claims of anthropogenic global warming. Historian Clayton E. Cramer presents both historical and archaeological evidence that you probably have not seen showing that the current warming is not unprecedented, and is not caused by man. Contains color graphs and maps; if you don't have a color Kindle, upgrade or use your smartphone.

Many Americans like to imagine the Framers of our Constitution as freethinkers: liberals in silly wigs and breeches. This book shows the sort of laws being passed into law during the Revolutionary era, and they fit well into modern ideas of social conservativism.