All posts in August 2025

Peter Cozzens has written a trilogy that looks at the events leading up to and including the eradication of the Native American population from the U.S. South. A Brutal Reckoning is the third book in the trilogy and focuses on Andrew Jackson’s role in the war with the Creek Indians. I expect to be shocked and appalled as I read.

These stories haven’t gotten the awareness they deserve. Cozzens makes the case that the brutal wars and removal of the American Indian from their lands laid the foundation for the American form of chattel slavery and thus, the American Civil War, because it opened up the fertile southern U.S. for settlement by the conquering whites.

Books I’m Reading I finished this one this week. Brookhiser did good work here. Alexander Hamilton is a unique study compared to the other founders of the U.S. They all share many characteristics but Hamilton was a bit of an outlier. For one, he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. He was born on a Caribbean Island.…

I picked back up on Red Rising book #5 this week after my hold on Libby arrived.

I’ll eventually finish the Red Rising series from Pierce Brown but it’ll take a while! From the Goodreads summary:

For a decade Darrow led a revolution against the corrupt color-coded Society. Now, outlawed by the very Republic he founded, he wages a rogue war on Mercury in hopes that he can still salvage the dream of Eo. But as he leaves death and destruction in his wake, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will another legend rise to take his place? Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile, has returned to the Core.

Determined to bring peace back to mankind at the edge of his sword, he must overcome or unite the treacherous Gold families of the Core and face down Darrow over the skies of war-torn Mercury. But theirs are not the only fates hanging in the balance. On Luna, Mustang, Sovereign of the Republic, campaigns to unite the Republic behind her husband. Beset by political and criminal enemies, can she outwit her opponents in time to save him? Once a Red refugee, young Lyria now stands accused of treason, and her only hope is a desperate escape with unlikely new allies.

Abducted by a new threat to the Republic, Pax and Electra, the children of Darrow and Sevro, must trust in Ephraim, a thief, for their salvation-and Ephraim must look to them for his chance at redemption. As alliances shift, break, and re-form-and power is seized, lost, and reclaimed-every player is at risk in a game of conquest that could turn the Rising into a new Dark Age.

I’m continuing in this excellent biography this week.

Hamilton was a fiery character, well-read and well-informed, and passionate in his defense of his beliefs and convictions.