From the Bookshelf Periodic musings on books I like. Only once in my life as a historian has a book recommendation given to a friend actually turned out well. It was a couple of years ago, and a good friend of mine asked that I suggest a book he could give his father for Christmas. I recommended the following: Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (New York: Basic Books, 2007) I had just assigned the book for an undergraduate course on the pre-1900 U.S. West and students ate it up. I loved Reséndez's much-praised first book, Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850, but it was a much denser academic study that I probably wouldn't suggest Continue readingFrom the Bookshelf: Reséndez – A Land So Strange