The best of 2013

[Wesley Harris]

I read about 100 books a year, slightly over half American history. Here is some of my favorites read during 2013:

SAVAGE WILL: The Daring Escape of Americans Trapped Behind Nazi Lines by Timothy M. Gay

FOUNDING RIVALS: Madison vs. Monroe, The Bill of Rights, and The Election that Saved a Nation by Chris DeRose

HUNTING CHE: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World’s Most Famous Revolutionary by Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer

BREAKING THE LINE: The Season in Black College Football that Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman

BACKSTAGE AT THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION: The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford's Theatre by Tom Bogar

SHOT ALL TO HELL: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West’s Greatest Escape by Mark Lee Gardner

FROZEN IN TIME: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington by Paul Lockhart

THE KINGS OF CASINO PARK: Black Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932 by Thomas Aiello

THE TWILIGHT WARRIORS: The Deadliest Naval Battle of World War II and the Men Who Fought It by Robert Gandt

MOBY-DUCK: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them by Donovan Hohn

SULTANA: Surviving the Civil War, Prison & the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History by Alan Huffman