Chicago 2401 months ago, and other books

Two hundred years and one month ago, at the start of the War of 1812, the Potawatomi obliterated Chicago. Last month the University of Chicago Press announced a new book on the subject by historian Ann Durkin Keating: Rising Up from Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago. With blurbs from Donald Miller (City of the Century) and Lee Sandlin (Wicked River) it looks to be a good read. (Sandlin's take is not wholly favorable, however.)


Other recently reviewed books of potential microhistorical interest:

Adrea Lawrence, Lessons from an Indian Day School: Negotiating Colonization in Northern New Mexico, 1902-1907, reviewed here.

Alan Allport, Demobbed: Coming Home after World War Two, reviewed here.



Harold Henderson, "Chicago 2401 months ago, and other books," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 6 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Forthcoming books

The fall 2008 publishers' catalogs are out, and I find two books (which pretty much by definition I have not seen) that may prove to be valuable as genealogical references:

Due out in November from the University of Illinois Press, Place Names of Illinois by Edward Callary of Northern Illinois University: "the origins of names of nearly three thousand Illinois communities and the circumstances surrounding their naming and renaming."

Due out in December from the University of Chicago Press, Chicago Neighborhoods and Suburbs: A Historical Guide edited by Ann Durkin Keating of North Central College, and coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Chicago: "comprehensive, cross-referenced entries on all seventy-seven community areas, along with many suburbs and neighborhoods both extant and long forgotten, from Albany Park to Zion." Contributors include Michael Ebner, Susan Hirsch, and Robert Bruegmann.