Upcoming Book Projects

Earlier I published a Kindle version of my thesis (all money from the Amazon purchase goes to charity, alternatively I will give a free PDF copy to those who contact me) entitled Portraying the Overland Other: Representations of Plains Indians along the Oregon Trail.

Now I am working on two original projects which I hope to have published within a year.

God's Houses on America's Church Street

16th Avenue Northwest in Washington, District of Columbia starts at the White House and goes north through several historic and diverse neighborhoods.  The large presence of churches along the street has caused some to call the street "America's Church Street".  

Today there are multiple Catholic, Protestant, and other forms of Christian churches along the street as well as other faith centers.  This book is meant to be a sort of coffee table book with photographs and information on each church.  A geographic analysis of the results will also be provided.

The photos and research are done and editing is currently under way.

Americans United for the Preservation of Fascism

This project is one I am really excited about.  When I was providing security to a senior-level officer engaging in counter-insurgency in Afghanistan at a town market a sergeant leaned over and asked me "How would you feel if the Chinese would go down your hometown's main street every Thursday in a massive show of force?"  This got me thinking: how would I and other people react?

During my time in war zones and the Middle East I have met Islamists, religious nationalists, secular nationalists, idealist progressives, and Quislings.  Meanwhile, many soldiers I spent time with either did not know the differences between groups and personality types ("they're all Hajis to me") or had a very poor understanding of important players ("al Qaeda is mostly Shia, right?").

So in an effort to explore insurgency and help explain what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan I am working on a short novel entitled "Americans United for the Preservation of Fascism".  The book takes place in a universe where a multinational force led by a liberal Saudi Arabia liberates Protestant-majority United States from the secular-Catholic American Fascist Party.  All seems to go well for the multinational forces until religious Protestants, Saudi-based Protestant exiles, secular Catholics, religious Catholics, and Catholic foreign fighters all clash and threaten the new America.

War gaming is almost complete and writing has been underway for a few months.