Loved MAUS.
I don't know if I'm a buff but I learn so much from reading history books.
- Books by Robert Caro
- Books I read about early American democracy
- A book on Andrew Jackson
- Canadian labour history also (I had a relative who was a rabble rouser)
American history is particularly interesting. What do you recommend ?
You count as a history buff in my opinion!
I never finished it, but "Founding Brothers" was good. Joseph J. Ellis. It's interesting to me, too but I never really got into the U.S. as much as other types of history. In our schools they seem to place more importance on the civil war than on the Revolutionary War. However, I did study American history (one class was Columbus to 1876, the second was 1877 to present). I also took a class called Era of the American Civil War.
Did you read de Toqueville's "Democracy in America"?
Andrew Jackson was pretty interesting. Most people in the U.S. probably don't remember that Jackson started to expand suffrage closer to what they considered to be "universal suffrage" at the time. (I.e., "all white males over 21" = "universal".) Hence the era of "Jacksonian Democracy". [Fun fact: there were so many drunken admirers at his inauguration party at the White House, they had to move the celebration on to the lawn, for fear they were going to destroy the furniture, and basically trash the place.]
What does Robert Caro write about?