If you’ve been enjoying this podcast series on The Empire: A 250 Year American Story, and if you’re a history nerd like myself, then this list is for you.

The following is a list of different sources and books I referenced or learned from while prepping for episodes 18-33 in this series. These episodes covered the times immediately after the Constitution was ratified and up to Reconstruction.

Antebellum America

The antebellum (before the war) period of American history technically begins around 1820. This list starts before that, to be honest. A couple of the books cover the era from 1790 to 1820 as well.

• Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic 1789-1815
• What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of American 1815-1848
• Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
• Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants
• Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion
• The Impending Crisis, America Before the Civil War 1848-1861
• Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War
• Undaunted Courage: Merriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West
• Manifest Destinies: America’s Westward Expansion and the Road to the Civil War
• An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe 1846-1873
• American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Civil War and Reconstruction

It was really difficult to stop reading about the Civil War and move on to the next phase of the research for this podcast series. There is just so much good material out there. There are a lot of books I wanted to read that I had to walk away from to stay on schedule with the podcast series.

One thing to note is that my list is heavy on biographies for this period. Personally, I found that some broad overviews of the period set a great stage for me to dig into first, and then I supplemented that with a lot of biography reading. The Frederick Douglass bio is my top biography on this list. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read, to be honest.

• Battle Cry of Freedom
• American Civil Wars: A Continental History
• Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution
• The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age
• Robert E. Lee, A Life
• Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
• Grant
• The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
• Lincoln
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
• William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country
• Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
• From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans
• The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era
• The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction

This post is part of our collection and series The Empire: A 250 Year American Story. Each week for the duration of 2026, new episodes will release, telling the unique, complex, and fascinating story of America’s history.