John Jakes has gone up the trail. Jakes was a journeyman writer when he hit HUGE with The Kent Family Chronicles in the mid-1970s, timed fortuitously to take advantage of a spike in interest in heritage around the 1976 Bicentennial. The runaway bestseller status of the chunky, pulpy novels created a 20-year vogue for multi-generational … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Historical Sagas & Tales Of Terrorism

Thanks to a heads up from FP reader Brian Mack, I got an order in at the Fort Plain Museum for Tim Todish and Gary Zaboly’s new magnum opus on Rogers’ Rangers. By ordering through Fort Plain you can get a small discount and a portion of proceeds supports the museum. This book is magnificent — the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship and … [Read more...] about ‘Rogers Rangers’ & Victory At Bushy Run

A dispatch from Fennario: MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president posted a photo on his social media accounts Saturday showing what he said appeared to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not seem to be joking when he posted the photo of an “Aluxe,” a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Wood Elves & Highlanders

Guest post by Matthew Ilseman   Game Wardens have a history that dates back to the Middle Ages. They are related to Rangers of the American Frontier and other forest warriors. As such they may be seen as forerunners of modern to special operation units. Modern spec ops, however, has also influence on modern game wardens as shown in … [Read more...] about Hidden War

Brady Crytzer is one of us. He teaches history at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, and specializes in the study the imperial frontiers of North America, particularly Western Pennsylvania. He hosts Dispatches, the podcast of the Journal of the American Revolution. He’s written several strong books, including a volume on Fort Pitt, an … [Read more...] about Whiskey Rebels

The event of the season... Thanks to Monk for scouting up a palaver between two titans of frontier Highlander storytelling: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona will present on Thursday, March 2 John Sayles in conversation with Diana Gabaldon Sayles’ novel, Jamie MacGillveray: The Renegade’s Journey, drops on February 28. I may … [Read more...] about A Tale Of Two Jamies

Historical novelist of the frontier, James Alexander Thom, has gone up the trail. Thom was 89, and left a legacy of some 15 novels of frontier America behind. The novel Long Knife, which recounted George Rogers Clark’s epic Illinois Campaign in the American Revolution (and Clark’s sad decline into penury and alcoholism) hit me like a rifle ball … [Read more...] about A Storyteller Makes His Final Journey

I can’t believe the release of the fourth and final Anton Rider yarn slipped past me this fall. My only excuse is that it took such a looooong time to get here. I posted on the “imminent” release of We’ll Meet Again in 2014. Seriously. The publishing world is as dysfunctional as any other aspect of our decadent civilization. More so. But … [Read more...] about The Final Safari Of Anton Rider

By Rick Schwertfeger Captain, Frontier Partisans Southern Command   I jumped. At night, on oxygen, out of a plane from 20,000 feet! Cold as hell, well below freezing. I’d be airborne for thirty or forty minutes, and land a good 40 miles upland from where I dropped! This was a HAHO: High-Altitude, High-Opening operation: the aircraft drops … [Read more...] about Training To Fight The Modern Wars Of Empire