How did Antebellum Slaveholders Protect Slavery?

For our first seventy years as an independent nation, slaveholding interests dominated our governmental institutions. How did they do it?

Read my article in American Thinker. 

The Left Failed to Co-Opt Animal Farm

The Left used Hollywood to claim Animal Farm for itself. Andy Serkis’s adaptation reframes Orwell’s anti-communist classic as an anti-capitalist animated film. The $35M movie made $3.4M on opening weekend from 2,600 screens, averaging $1,307 per screen. Ticket buyers had their pick of seats.

The audacity is breathtaking. Orwell disemboweled communism in a simply told fairy tale that is considered a literary and political classic. The idea of revising someone else’s famous critique of the Left to sell the Left’s empty bombast was silly to begin with, but doing it was super-dumb. How many thought-challenged zealots on the Left will leave the theater with the intent of reading the book? Okay, not many, because few saw the film.

Yet films often revive interest in books. Many who skipped the film may read about its failure and think, "Hey, I remember that book from school," and, like me, decide to read it again. I did, and found it’s still a great story—just as relevant as 81 years ago. Human nature hasn’t changed.

Animal Farm uses the enduring form of a fable to reveal an eternal truth. Orwell succeeded. (The movie did not.) Having once believed in socialism, Orwell later changed his mind. People who have lived under socialism certainly don’t like it. Eastern Europeans aren’t buying this crap. Misery and despotism entrap North Koreans while their brethren to the south live in the eleventh richest nation on Earth. There are no refugee boats risking life and limb to reach Cuba. East Berlin didn’t build a wall to keep Westerners out. Even people in Russia and Albania prefer a kleptocracy to communism.

The truth is, socialism works exactly as portrayed in Animal Farm. The world needs this book to go viral. Buy a copy. Make George Orwell’s Animal Farm a bestseller once again.

 

 

Maelstrom now available for preorder!

Book 2 in the American Exceptionalism Series

Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel, is now available for Kindle preorder.

Release Date June 1, 2026

(Hardcover and paperback will also be available on June 1, 2026)

“I enjoyed this.” 

Harold Holzer, Lincoln Prize winner and Chair of The Lincoln Forum

"See Lincoln as you've never seen him before as he navigates the maelstrom of the Civil War."

Larry Schweikart, NYTimes #1 Bestselling author

Maelstrom tells the story of the greatest rivalry in American history. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis led their nations in a must-win fight, and Maelstrom shows how each dealt with the same issues, countered the other’s moves, led their respective governments, and used their political powers to sway the outcome.

Read the first chapter free HERE.

Tucson Festival of Books

The Tucson Festival of Books is the largest free book fair in the nation. It's a great adventure, and if you did not attend this year, you'll just be another year older when you do. 

Three of my books were highlighted: The Shopkeeper, The Shut Mouth Society, and Tempest at Dawn.

Lots of great presentations. This is C. J Box, Ellie Cosimano, and J. A Jance talking about book series. Great discussion.

2026 Tucson Book Festival: March 14th and 15th

 

I will be signing books at the Tucson Book Festival

Sunday, March 15 Booth #159 @ 1:00

Come enjoy one of the best book fairs in the country!

Honest Westerns. Filled with dishonest characters.

The real story of our nation's founding.

Can a 150-year-old conspiracy be unraveled before it’s too late?

2026 Tucson Book Festival: March 14th and 15th

 

On March 14 and 15, on the University of Arizona campus, more than 130,000 readers and over 300 authors will celebrate the written word at the 2026 Tucson Book Festival.  If you can, come and join the party.

The Tucson Book Festival is one of the largest book fairs in the nation. I’ll be there, and so will my books. Well, at least three of them. Tempest at Dawn, The Shopkeeper, and The Shut Mouth Society will be featured at the Wheatmark Booth, #159. I am signing books on Sunday and will post an update after I am assigned a time slot.

Hope you can make it!

Visit Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel by James D. Best

Kindle Popular Highlights, Good or Bad

 

I have mixed feelings about Kindle’s “Popular Highlights.” This feature shows readers how many people have highlighted a particular phrase or section in a Kindle book. Yet, a cardinal rule of writing is to never jerk the reader out of the story. A Popular Highlight does exactly that. The reader stops reading to see what 142 people thought was noteworthy. On the other hand, it is enlightening for the author to see what made an impression on readers. I recently revisited Tempest at Dawn as part of my research for Maelstrom and encountered the Popular Highlights for my novel based on the Constitutional Convention. Here is a list of those with over 100 highlights.

Popular Highlights from Tempest at Dawn

“Neither nations nor children should be conceived in public.”

“Faithfulness is not how one lives, but what one aspires to.”

“Our leaders must see themselves as servants of the people, not disciplinarians.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, no controls on government would be necessary.” James Madison

“You cannot legislate how people think.”

“I find humans badly constructed. They are more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed to do mischief than good, more easily deceived than undeceived, and more impressed with their own self than considerate of others.” Ben Franklin

“People hold all political power, and only they can delegate authority to a government. The people are free to change governments at will. They don’t need permission from incumbents.”

“We must endure the ignorant to protect the liberty of the majority.”

“Politics, disguised by a veneer of civility, is played on the very edge of barbarism.”

“Autocrats slyly build anxiety and fear, and then offer up government to protect people from these shadowy threats. Each submission erodes liberty.”

“An outrageous lie, if repeated often enough, and with fervent indignation, will eventually be accepted as truth.”

Tempest at Dawn

The real story of our nation's founding.

Dixie Betrayed by Davis J. Eicher

Dixie Betrayed, How the South Really Lost The Civil War by Davis J. Eicher

The last words of Eicher’s book are “Jefferson Davis had lost his power as Confederate president — but not before the whole cause of the Confederacy was lost. Dixie was Betrayed.”

The title and these final words betray the worth of this book. Nearly twenty thousand books have been written about Lincoln and almost a hundred thousand about the Civil War. Less than an estimated twenty percent of these were written from a Confederate perspective and many of those were Lost Cause screeds. Since the Confederacy lost, official documents were often destroyed which requires a historian to rely on sources like newspapers, letters, and memoirs—and these are not nearly as well organized and indexed as Union sources. This may partially account for why relatively few Confederate histories have been published.  

Dixie Betrayed is a solid history of the Confederacy and does not attempt to propagate the Lost Cause myths. Eicher explains how the South lost, but betrayal played no role in it. The absence of an industrial base, limited manpower, naive political leadership, and a flawed constitution were the culprits.

The betrayal theme likely originated from an editorial meeting aimed at boosting sales, and it may have been effective for the launch. However, now Eicher’s book wears the title like an albatross, and it is perhaps overlooked by those seeking an erudite history of the Confederate States of America.

To understand the Civil War period, it is necessary to study the war from both sides. Dixie Betrayed by Davis J. Eicher provides the view from the Confederate side.

Dual Book Reviews: The Dahlgren Affair

 

Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren

Like A Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren

These Ulric Dahlgren biographies present the Union and Confederate views of the Dahlgren Affair.

Here is the gist of the “Affair.” In February of 1864, a Union cavalry detachment raided Richmond in the hope of releasing imprisoned soldiers captured by the Confederacy. Colonel Ulric Dahlgren led a major arm of the assault. The raid was unsuccessful, and Dahlgren was killed in an ambush. Papers were found on Dahlgren’s body that ordered the raiding party to murder Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. The Union claimed the papers were forgeries while the Confederacy insisted they were genuine. At the time, the Dahlgren Affair became a cause célèbre. The authenticity of the papers remains unresolved.

Ulric’s father, Admiral Dahlgren, insisted that the papers were forgeries and his son would never have taken part in an assassination plot. The memoir, written by the admiral in 1872, makes the case for the papers being forged.

Eric J. Wittenberg's 2015 biography, Like A Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, argues for the authenticity of the papers. The book details Ulric’s brief life, focusing primarily on the Dahlgren Affair.

If you enjoy the Civil War or unsolved mysteries, read both books and decide for yourself.

Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman

 

Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William T Sherman

In turns fascinating and boring. General Sherman wrote a valuable memoir for historians, but too much minutia for the casual Civil War buff. Sherman includes innumerable orders and other correspondence and describes his entire command structure every time there is a significant change or battle. Although historians, especially military historians, will find this invaluable, it can often be dull reading. Sherman frequently allows these documents to tell the story without presenting a description in his narrative. This means the reader must at least review the correspondence to gain a sense of the events.

Disappointedly, Sherman seldom shares his opinions or even thoughts about significant issues. It’s sort of the Jack Webb version of his life. When Sherman does express an opinion, it’s pure gold, especially the chapter when he recounts what he believes are the military lessons from the Civil War.

Memorial Day Remembrance

I never met my father. He died in WWII in the cockpit of his P-51.

I don't have many pictures of him, but this one was posted to a website honoring the 506th Fighter Group. My father is the furthest out on the wing.

I'd like to thank him and his compatriots who keep us safe and free.

Lincoln’s Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home By Matthew Pinsker

 

Lincoln’s Sanctuary looks at Lincoln from a new vantage point. With thousands upon thousands of Lincoln books, this seems like quite a feat but Pinsker pulls it off. Lincoln’s Sanctuary explores Abraham Lincoln’s time at the Soldiers’ Home, a cottage in the heights of Washington that served much like Camp David does today.

From 1862 to 1864, Lincoln and his family spent summers at the cottage to escape the heat and in-city pressures. Pinsker, a historian, uses primary sources to paint a vivid picture of Lincoln’s personal and political life during this period. The book connects the cottage to key wartime events, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the firing of General McClellan, and Lincoln’s evolving public image.

Lincoln buffs looking for a peek into Lincoln’s private life will find this book interesting.