Bibliography
I have started this page to keep track of the reading that has informed the ASB. Right now I'm trying to look back and recall what I've used in the seven years since I started the project, so it's extremely incomplete, especially regarding websites.
Books and papers
Axtell, James (1985): The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. - Axtell's book helped to inform a lot of my content on Catholic religious life among the Indian people, and it is directly responsible for my including the Praying Towns of Massachusetts. It also inspired much of the ASB's geography. The names "Iroquoia" and "Huronia" come from here.
Breene, T.H. and Stephen Innes (1980). Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore. - Source for the Accomacs of Virginia.
De la Rosa Corzo Gabino (2003). Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and Repression. Translated by Mary Todd. - A guide to the palenques of the Cuban countryside.
Doughty, A. G. (1922). The Acadian Exiles: A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline. I listened to this wonderful history as a free audiobook from LibriVox. It paints such a clear picture of colonial Acadia that when I was finished, the Acadia history just about wrote itself.
Dunn, Charles W. (1991). Highland Settler: A Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Cape Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia. - A guide to Nova Scotian folk culture. It informed some of the cultural history of Acadia, though the Gaels in this timeline mostly did not settle on Cape Breton.
Ellis, Joseph (2007). American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. - This book consists of six different episodes. The most useful part to me is about the relations between the Washington administration and the Creek Nation. It provided a model for English-Indian relations in the ASB.
Frohman, Charles E. (1976). "Searching for the Forts and Indian Villages of Sandusky Bay." Hayes Historical Journal, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum. - Rich source of local history that I was able to adapt to the complex history of the Sanduskey Country in this timeline.
Fortney, Jeffrey L., Jr. (2009). Slaves and Slaveholders in the Choctaw Nation: 1830-1866. Master's thesis. University of North Texas. - A very useful introduction to race and slavery among the Choctaws.
Gibson, Carrie (2014). Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day. - So far this has had the most influence on my history for the Dominicas, and as the rest of the Caribbean states continue to develop it will go on being useful. I had the pleasure of reading this on location during a vacation in Cuba.
Gott, Richard (2004). Cuba: A New History. - A great general history with an emphasis on the cycle of repression and resistance in Cuba's history.
Jennings, Francis (1984). The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire. I have to admit that I never finished reading this one. But it helped me get to know the internal structure of the Iroquois Confederation a lot more, along with its relationship with its dependent tribes.
Louda, Jiří and Michael Maclagan (1981, updated 2002). Lines of Succession: The Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe. - This is my main reference for dynastic history. It's thorough and easy to understand, Maclagan's text nicely elaborating on Louda's beautiful artwork and genealogical tables. The family trees that I have made are based on Louda's style.
MacLachlan, Colin M. and Jaime E. Rodriguez O. (1980). The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. - Mexico's history doesn't touch the ASB directly, but this history of Mexican ethnicity, culture and polity did a lot to inform some of the racial dynamics in the setting. I read it just before spending some time studying in Mexico, so the book plus the trip taught me a lot about it.
Mann, Charles C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. - I can't point to much specific content that was directly inspired by Mann's blockbuster synthesis, but I know it's influenced the setting in subtle ways.
Milton, Giles (2000). Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America. - This pop history book influenced the way I have written about the earliest history of Newfoundland and Lower Virginia. In particular, Milton emphasizes the continuity between the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies, something you don't get in the standard telling.
Nuce, Grace Lee (1944). Lake Superior. - This book was essential for helping me track the major sites and trade routes in Lake Superior in the French era. I got to read it - or parts of it, anyway, while on a trip around the lake.
Richter, Daniel (2011). Before the Revolution: America's Ancient Pasts. - Probably the second most important source of inspiration after White's book. His theme of historical "layers" in America's past proved very fruitful, since I could draw from the different layers to add material to the setting. Some of the ASB state histories directly affected by this book include Maryland, the Dominion of New England states, Carolina, Pennsylvania, Christiana, and East Florida.
Roberts, Michael, editor (1973). Sweden's Age of Greatness, 1632-1713. - This really helped me get a handle on the basis for Sweden's empire and how it could be extended later in history. It therefore had a lot of influence on the ASB's state of Christiana.
Shannon, Timothy J. (2008). Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier. - I read this before I started to work on the ASB, but it informed a lot of the material on diplomacy and alliance between the different states.
Shorto, Russell (2004). The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. - This readable history of New Netherland has lots of alternate history potential because a lot of it is Shorto painting a picture of Adriaen Van der Donck's vision for a colony that might have been, if the Dutch had been willing to support it.
Stein, Mark (2008). How the States Got Their Shapes. - This quick little map-filled book inspired many details of the ASB's map, which was the first part of the project that I designed. In particular, the borders of New Hampshire, Maryland, and Watauga owe a lot to it.
White, Richard (1991). The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. - The book that directly inspired the ASB and is responsible for the general tone, geography, and culture of the setting. The ASB states of Ohio and the Upper Country owe the most to White's book, but really so does the entire project.
Wilson, Peter H. (2009). The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Wilson's tour de force has helped me with a lot of the European content in the setting, besides helping me understand some of the political and religious dynamics behind the wars of the seventeenth century.
Woodard, Colin (2007). The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. - This book is so much fun that I read it twice, once during a vacation to the Bahamas and once back home. I hardly ever do that. The ASB's Bahamas comes directly from here.
Zilversmit, Arthur (1967). The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. - This book got me to expand my thinking about race in America and helped me write about alternative ends of slavery in a hopefully more informed, intelligent way.
Websites
This list is horribly incomplete.
"Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador." - Comprehensive histories of different aspects of both parts of the province.
"The Illinois," Illinois State Museum. - Excellent introduction to the history, organization, and culture of the Illinois people.
Museums and historic sites
I owe my visits to a lot of these to my friend Alec. Whenever we can, we hop in a car and see as much history as we can fit into our time off.
Battle of Moraviantown site, Chatham-Kent, Ontario
Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site, Cahokia, Illinois
Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana, Cuba
Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, Havana, Cuba - During the brief window between President Obama's relaxing of travel restrictions to Cuba and his successor's restoring of them, I persuaded three friends to travel to Havana. I didn't tell them that I was aiming to gather material for my fictional world. Havana's forts are an amazing monument to the sheer strength of Spain's empire.
Centre for French Colonial Life, Sainte Genevieve, Missouri - There are some really well preserved colonial houses in the town. They provide a vision of what Life on the Mississippi would be if it spoke French.
Charleston, South Carolina - The economic shortsightedness of the antebellum planter class ensured that the central city would be amazingly well preserved. Even without any tours, a walk around would be a walk through the past - but there are a lot of tours.
Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, Prairie du Rocher, Illinois - The fort and its museum have had a huge impact not just on the ASB, but on how I as an Illinoisan understand my own history. Probably the key part was a display on the survival of French culture in the nearby village of Prairie du Rocher. That display more-or-less became the ASB's Illinois page.
Fort Michilimackinac, Mackinaw City, Michigan - The most memorable thing about this park is its portrayal of cultural syncretism around the fort. British, French, Anishinaabe, and others inhabited the space together, not always getting along, but always interacting.
Fort Niagara State Park, Youngstown, New York - the video in the interpretative center actually uses the name "The Upper Country", which was nice to see.
Grand Portage National Monument, Grand Portage, Minnesota - As soon as I got home from here, I immediately rewrote the parts of the Upper Country dealing with the western end of Lake Superior. The restored fort is a masterpiece of historical interpretation that captures the feel of the Grand Portage as a cultural and economic contact point. What I learned there also greatly informed the content on Assiniboia.
Marquette Mission Park and the Museum of Ojibwa Culture, St. ignace, Michigan
Millington Place, Charleston, South Carolina - For this timeline, I made Henry Middleton a much more pivotal figure than he was in real life, to the point where I started to feel like he was a fictional character of my own creation. So touring his house was a surreal experience. It is also an incredible piece of historic interpretation. While showcasing the site's beauty, it pulls no punches in describing the ubiquitous brutality that underlay every aspect of plantation life.
Palenque de los Cimarrones, Viñales, Cuba - This site commemorates the Maroon, or Cimarrón, communities that existed throughout Cuba and that played such an important role in its emerging culture in this timeline.
Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, Put-In-Bay, Ohio - The Battle of Lake Erie may not have an exact parallel in this world's history, but the vivid image that this monument creates helped me visualize Great Lakes combat and put it to use in the ASB's history.
Stavkirke, Washington Island, Wisconsin - Impressive craftsmanship and a monument to the Nordic heritage of the island, Noquet Island in this timeline.
Teotihuacan World Heritage Site, Teotihuacan de Arista, Estado de México - One of the most memorable things from the pyramid city was nothing in the official site, but a conversation I overheard between two visiting Mexican-Americans. A young woman was saying something like, "I had to promise my mom that I'd come here. She's always telling me: 'You need to learn about your culture. This is who you are, mija.'" I loved hearing this, partly because it bespoke such a different attitude toward the ancient past from what I hear as an American. Paradoxically fixated on both newness and genetics, we ignore our ancient past, both because we see it as irrelevant to our present and because we see it as something that happened to somebody else's ancestors.
Tepozteco, Tepoztlán, Morelos
Tippecanoe Battlefield Park, Battle Ground, Indiana
Books and papers
Axtell, James (1985): The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. - Axtell's book helped to inform a lot of my content on Catholic religious life among the Indian people, and it is directly responsible for my including the Praying Towns of Massachusetts. It also inspired much of the ASB's geography. The names "Iroquoia" and "Huronia" come from here.
Breene, T.H. and Stephen Innes (1980). Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore. - Source for the Accomacs of Virginia.
De la Rosa Corzo Gabino (2003). Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and Repression. Translated by Mary Todd. - A guide to the palenques of the Cuban countryside.
Doughty, A. G. (1922). The Acadian Exiles: A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline. I listened to this wonderful history as a free audiobook from LibriVox. It paints such a clear picture of colonial Acadia that when I was finished, the Acadia history just about wrote itself.
Dunn, Charles W. (1991). Highland Settler: A Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Cape Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia. - A guide to Nova Scotian folk culture. It informed some of the cultural history of Acadia, though the Gaels in this timeline mostly did not settle on Cape Breton.
Ellis, Joseph (2007). American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. - This book consists of six different episodes. The most useful part to me is about the relations between the Washington administration and the Creek Nation. It provided a model for English-Indian relations in the ASB.
Frohman, Charles E. (1976). "Searching for the Forts and Indian Villages of Sandusky Bay." Hayes Historical Journal, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum. - Rich source of local history that I was able to adapt to the complex history of the Sanduskey Country in this timeline.
Fortney, Jeffrey L., Jr. (2009). Slaves and Slaveholders in the Choctaw Nation: 1830-1866. Master's thesis. University of North Texas. - A very useful introduction to race and slavery among the Choctaws.
Gibson, Carrie (2014). Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day. - So far this has had the most influence on my history for the Dominicas, and as the rest of the Caribbean states continue to develop it will go on being useful. I had the pleasure of reading this on location during a vacation in Cuba.
Gott, Richard (2004). Cuba: A New History. - A great general history with an emphasis on the cycle of repression and resistance in Cuba's history.
Jennings, Francis (1984). The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire. I have to admit that I never finished reading this one. But it helped me get to know the internal structure of the Iroquois Confederation a lot more, along with its relationship with its dependent tribes.
Louda, Jiří and Michael Maclagan (1981, updated 2002). Lines of Succession: The Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe. - This is my main reference for dynastic history. It's thorough and easy to understand, Maclagan's text nicely elaborating on Louda's beautiful artwork and genealogical tables. The family trees that I have made are based on Louda's style.
MacLachlan, Colin M. and Jaime E. Rodriguez O. (1980). The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. - Mexico's history doesn't touch the ASB directly, but this history of Mexican ethnicity, culture and polity did a lot to inform some of the racial dynamics in the setting. I read it just before spending some time studying in Mexico, so the book plus the trip taught me a lot about it.
Mann, Charles C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. - I can't point to much specific content that was directly inspired by Mann's blockbuster synthesis, but I know it's influenced the setting in subtle ways.
Milton, Giles (2000). Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America. - This pop history book influenced the way I have written about the earliest history of Newfoundland and Lower Virginia. In particular, Milton emphasizes the continuity between the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies, something you don't get in the standard telling.
Nuce, Grace Lee (1944). Lake Superior. - This book was essential for helping me track the major sites and trade routes in Lake Superior in the French era. I got to read it - or parts of it, anyway, while on a trip around the lake.
Richter, Daniel (2011). Before the Revolution: America's Ancient Pasts. - Probably the second most important source of inspiration after White's book. His theme of historical "layers" in America's past proved very fruitful, since I could draw from the different layers to add material to the setting. Some of the ASB state histories directly affected by this book include Maryland, the Dominion of New England states, Carolina, Pennsylvania, Christiana, and East Florida.
Roberts, Michael, editor (1973). Sweden's Age of Greatness, 1632-1713. - This really helped me get a handle on the basis for Sweden's empire and how it could be extended later in history. It therefore had a lot of influence on the ASB's state of Christiana.
Shannon, Timothy J. (2008). Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier. - I read this before I started to work on the ASB, but it informed a lot of the material on diplomacy and alliance between the different states.
Shorto, Russell (2004). The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. - This readable history of New Netherland has lots of alternate history potential because a lot of it is Shorto painting a picture of Adriaen Van der Donck's vision for a colony that might have been, if the Dutch had been willing to support it.
Stein, Mark (2008). How the States Got Their Shapes. - This quick little map-filled book inspired many details of the ASB's map, which was the first part of the project that I designed. In particular, the borders of New Hampshire, Maryland, and Watauga owe a lot to it.
White, Richard (1991). The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. - The book that directly inspired the ASB and is responsible for the general tone, geography, and culture of the setting. The ASB states of Ohio and the Upper Country owe the most to White's book, but really so does the entire project.
Wilson, Peter H. (2009). The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Wilson's tour de force has helped me with a lot of the European content in the setting, besides helping me understand some of the political and religious dynamics behind the wars of the seventeenth century.
Woodard, Colin (2007). The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. - This book is so much fun that I read it twice, once during a vacation to the Bahamas and once back home. I hardly ever do that. The ASB's Bahamas comes directly from here.
Zilversmit, Arthur (1967). The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. - This book got me to expand my thinking about race in America and helped me write about alternative ends of slavery in a hopefully more informed, intelligent way.
Websites
This list is horribly incomplete.
"Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador." - Comprehensive histories of different aspects of both parts of the province.
"The Illinois," Illinois State Museum. - Excellent introduction to the history, organization, and culture of the Illinois people.
Museums and historic sites
I owe my visits to a lot of these to my friend Alec. Whenever we can, we hop in a car and see as much history as we can fit into our time off.
Battle of Moraviantown site, Chatham-Kent, Ontario
Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site, Cahokia, Illinois
Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana, Cuba
Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, Havana, Cuba - During the brief window between President Obama's relaxing of travel restrictions to Cuba and his successor's restoring of them, I persuaded three friends to travel to Havana. I didn't tell them that I was aiming to gather material for my fictional world. Havana's forts are an amazing monument to the sheer strength of Spain's empire.
Centre for French Colonial Life, Sainte Genevieve, Missouri - There are some really well preserved colonial houses in the town. They provide a vision of what Life on the Mississippi would be if it spoke French.
Charleston, South Carolina - The economic shortsightedness of the antebellum planter class ensured that the central city would be amazingly well preserved. Even without any tours, a walk around would be a walk through the past - but there are a lot of tours.
Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, Prairie du Rocher, Illinois - The fort and its museum have had a huge impact not just on the ASB, but on how I as an Illinoisan understand my own history. Probably the key part was a display on the survival of French culture in the nearby village of Prairie du Rocher. That display more-or-less became the ASB's Illinois page.
Fort Michilimackinac, Mackinaw City, Michigan - The most memorable thing about this park is its portrayal of cultural syncretism around the fort. British, French, Anishinaabe, and others inhabited the space together, not always getting along, but always interacting.
Fort Niagara State Park, Youngstown, New York - the video in the interpretative center actually uses the name "The Upper Country", which was nice to see.
Grand Portage National Monument, Grand Portage, Minnesota - As soon as I got home from here, I immediately rewrote the parts of the Upper Country dealing with the western end of Lake Superior. The restored fort is a masterpiece of historical interpretation that captures the feel of the Grand Portage as a cultural and economic contact point. What I learned there also greatly informed the content on Assiniboia.
Marquette Mission Park and the Museum of Ojibwa Culture, St. ignace, Michigan
Millington Place, Charleston, South Carolina - For this timeline, I made Henry Middleton a much more pivotal figure than he was in real life, to the point where I started to feel like he was a fictional character of my own creation. So touring his house was a surreal experience. It is also an incredible piece of historic interpretation. While showcasing the site's beauty, it pulls no punches in describing the ubiquitous brutality that underlay every aspect of plantation life.
Palenque de los Cimarrones, Viñales, Cuba - This site commemorates the Maroon, or Cimarrón, communities that existed throughout Cuba and that played such an important role in its emerging culture in this timeline.
Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, Put-In-Bay, Ohio - The Battle of Lake Erie may not have an exact parallel in this world's history, but the vivid image that this monument creates helped me visualize Great Lakes combat and put it to use in the ASB's history.
Stavkirke, Washington Island, Wisconsin - Impressive craftsmanship and a monument to the Nordic heritage of the island, Noquet Island in this timeline.
Teotihuacan World Heritage Site, Teotihuacan de Arista, Estado de México - One of the most memorable things from the pyramid city was nothing in the official site, but a conversation I overheard between two visiting Mexican-Americans. A young woman was saying something like, "I had to promise my mom that I'd come here. She's always telling me: 'You need to learn about your culture. This is who you are, mija.'" I loved hearing this, partly because it bespoke such a different attitude toward the ancient past from what I hear as an American. Paradoxically fixated on both newness and genetics, we ignore our ancient past, both because we see it as irrelevant to our present and because we see it as something that happened to somebody else's ancestors.
Tepozteco, Tepoztlán, Morelos
Tippecanoe Battlefield Park, Battle Ground, Indiana