S.C. Gwynne Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

S.C. Gwynne is an award winning journalist and historical fiction novelist from Texas, even though he was born in Massachusetts and brought up In Connecticut.

Sam would go to Princeton University from where he got his bachelor’s degree in history. He would then attend Johns Hopkins University for his masters degree where he studied under John Barth the acclaimed novelist.
He published his debut novel “Empire of the Sun Moon” in 2010 and has never looked back since. After graduating from college, Gwynne would find employment working as a journalist.
By 1994, he would rise through the ranks and be sent to Texas as the bureau chief of Time Magazine.

While he initially hated Texas, he would fall in love with it and it was while he was living there that he got interested in American history and Texan history in particular.
He currently makes his home in Austin Texas alongside Kristie Maratta, his wife who works as an artist.

Sam is currently a journalist who works for the Dallas Morning News. Prior to getting that job, he worked for more than ten decades at the Texas Monthly.

In 2008, he was the Writer of the Year for the Regional Magazine and National City Award. He also worked as a Senior editor, national correspondent and bureau chief for Time Magazine.

During his time as a journalist he was responsible for several remarkable works that would win him some prestigious awards. For his work on the shootings at Columbine High School he was the winner of the National Headliners Award.
He is also the winner of the most prestigious business writing award the Gerald Loeb Award, and the Distinguished Financial Writing Award known as the John Hancock Award.

Apart from that, he has also written for the likes of The Boston Globe, the New York Times, California Magazine, Harper’s, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times.
He would also work as the editor in chief of the most widely circulated regional business magazine at the time in the California Business magazine.

For several years before he became a journalist, S.C. Gwynne was an international banker and French teacher. It is for this reason that his first work was about his days as an international banker.
He penned his second novel about the BCCI bank fraud which was titled “The Outlaw Bank.” His second novel was a Top Ten Book of the Year in Business Week Magazine.

It was when he moved to Texas in 1985, met the Comanches and started learning about Texan history that he would become fascinated with history.

His first historical fiction work was the Scrivener-published “Empire of the Summer Moon” which spent at least four months on the bestselling list on the New York Times.
This was an incredible feat given that Quanah Parker the lead in the novel has a lot of works written by other authors which have not done so well.

“Empire of the Sun Moon” is a stunning and vivid historical account of the four decade old war between white settlers and the Comanche Indians for the American West. At the center of it is the greatest Comanche chief ever to live in Quanah.
It is a work of two stories with the first chronicling the rise and fall of what has to be the most powerful American Indians in the Comanche tribe.

The second is the epic story of Cynthia Ann Parker and Quanah, her mixed blood son who would become one of the greatests chiefs of her tribe.

The war lasted for forty years and could arguably be said that it held up the development of the United States.

The exhilarating account tells a swapping story that encompasses the arrival of the railroads, Spanish colonialism, the destruction of the buffalo herds and the Civil War.
Against that backdrop, S.C Gwynne tells the compelling story of Cynthia Ann Parker. She is a sweet nine year old with beautiful blue eyes who was taken from the Texas frontier by the Comanches in 1836.
Alongside Quanah, they would become famous as the White Squaw and the legendary undefeated guerilla chief respectively.

“Rebel Yell” is another interesting historical fiction work from New York Times bestselling author S.C. Gwynne.

This is the story of how Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson the Civil War general went on to become a tragic but great American hero.

The general had been a figure of romance and legend for a long time just like many on the pantheon of the Confederate forces including Robert E. Lee. The man is the embodiment of the virtuous lost cause as romanticized in the south.
He would also be considered one of the greatests military figures in the United States. His brilliant strategies tied the Union high command including Abraham Lincoln in knots and for a long time made success by the union a mere mirage.
His military innovations destroyed conventional wisdom on how to wage war as generations in the future studied his far out techniques.

He started out as just another Confederate general in 1862 fighting a losing cause but a few months after being appointed, he would engineer one of the best military campaigns and become one of the most famous military leaders of his time.
The best thing about him was that he injected hope into the confederate ranks and struck fear into Union soldiers.

S.C. Gwynne’s “Hymns of the Republic” is a work that provides some of the most compelling stories and one of the biggest turning points of the Civil War. In this work he once again looks into the epic battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.
He chronicles the murder of Abraham Lincoln, the entry of nearly 200,000 black soldiers, Lee’s surrender, the March to the Sea by William Tecumseh Sherman, the violent guerilla war in Missouri, the election of 1864 and the rise of Clara Barton.
It is a novel that provides some great insights into the great southern hero and general Robert E. Lee is presented as a man dealing with loss, failure and frustration.

The Union general Ulysses who had a reputation as one of the best field commanders failed spectacularly in the final year of the Civil War. He would actually achieve much of what he is known for after he stopped going to the battlefield.
Gwynne argues that Sherman Tecumseh was a brilliant man, even though he could probably be one of the worst generals in the war. He also provides some great insights into the role played by former slaves turned Union soldiers.