Last week, we announced our plans for “Junto March Madness 2014” – a bracket tournament pitting our readers’ favorite early American history books published since 2000 against each other. Today, we begin the Call for Nominations. Check out the rules below and then add your nominations and seconds in the Comments section. Then, by the power of The Junto‘s bracketologists, we’ll compile the tournament brackets, and open it up for your votes starting next Monday.

The Rules

1) All books whose first edition was published on or after January 1, 2000 are eligible.

2) All nominations must be made in the Comments section of this post.

3) We ask you nominate a maximum of three books that have not yet been nominated. You may also “second” the nomination of three other books that have already been nominated. If you were going to nominate books already mentioned you may do so and they will be tallied as seconds. Self-nominations are allowed.

NB: Essentially, each voter can nominate and second up to six books but only three can be new nominations. Given the number of comments posted last year, it would be helpful if you explicitly stated which of your books count as nominations, and which count as seconds. (To see if one of your choices has already been nominated, go to Edit->Find in your browser and type in the name of the book.)

4) Nominations will close at 5pm on Thursday (March 13th). The first-round brackets will go up on Friday, March 14th, and readers will have the weekend to think about their picks before first-round voting begins on Monday, March 17th.

The Disclaimer

Like last year’s tournament, this is all meant to be taken in a spirit of fun. This tournament is not meant to bestow any kind of value judgment on individual works. If anything, it may be a reflection of the “favorite” books of our readers; but that should not be thought of as implying that it reflects what our readers or this blog think is the “best” book published since 2000. Last year’s competition inspired lots of interesting and entertaining conversations, and this year we’re hoping to introduce our readers to more recent literature, especially in areas that might be outside of their direct attention.

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Some Juntoists have helped kick off the nominating process with the following nominations. To be clear, this is not a definitive list of our three favorite books since 2000, but rather a means of getting the nomination process rolling.

Ken: Max Edling, A Revolution In Favor Of Government; Douglas Bradburn, The Citizenship Revolution; Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire

Ben: Eric Slauter, The State As A Work Of Art; Trish Loughran, The Republic In Print; Catherine Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World

Rachel: Michael A. LaCombe, Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World; Edward Andrews, Native Apostles; John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814

Michael H.: T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution; Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces; Benjamin Irvin, Clothed In The Robes of Sovereignty

Tom: Holly Brewer, By Birth Or Consent; Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy; Patrick Griffin, American Leviathan.

Jonathan: Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor; Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812; Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors