Great Lakes Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens | 1958 | Buy |
| The Detroit Riot of 1967 | 1969 | Buy |
| Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence | 1972 | Buy |
| Waiting for the Morning Train | 1972 | Buy |
| Call It North Country | 1986 | Buy |
| Danny and the Boys: Being Some Legends of Hungry Hollow | 1987 | Buy |
| Michigan Voices: Our State’s History in the Words of the People Who Lived It | 1987 | Buy |
| Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit | 1990 | Buy |
| Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit | 1991 | Buy |
| John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic | 1991 | Buy |
| Queen of the Lakes | 1994 | Buy |
| Turkey Stearnes and the Detroit Stars: The Negro Leagues in Detroit, 1919-1933 | 1994 | Buy |
| The Northern Lights: Lighthouses of the Upper Great Lakes | 1994 | Buy |
| Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit | 1997 | Buy |
| The Long Winter Ends | 1998 | Buy |
| All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement | 1998 | Buy |
| Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson | 1998 | Buy |
| Father Abraham’s Children: Michigan Episodes in the Civil War | 1998 | Buy |
| Huron: The Seasons of a Great Lake | 1999 | Buy |
| A Sailor’s Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters | 1999 | Buy |
| “Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights”: Michigan, 1948-1968 | 2000 | Buy |
| Graveyard of the Lakes | 2000 | Buy |
| Great Lakes Journey: A New Look at America’s Freshwater Coast | 2000 | Buy |
| History of the Finns in Michigan | 2001 | Buy |
| Uppermost Canada: The Western District and the Detroit Frontier, 1800-1850 | 2002 | Buy |
| Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors | 2002 | Buy |
| Michigan’s Early Military Forces: A Roster and History of Troops Activated Prior to the American Civil War | 2003 | Buy |
| Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation | 2003 | Buy |
| The French Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914 | 2003 | Buy |
| Beyond the Windswept Dunes: The Story of Maritime Michigan | 2003 | Buy |
| A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen Gifford Simmons and the Last Execution under Michigan Law | 2003 | Buy |
| Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company | 2003 | Buy |
| Angels in the Architecture: A Photographic Elegy to an American Asylum | 2004 | Buy |
| Pulling Down the Barn: Memories of a Rural Childhood | 2004 | Buy |
| To Keep the South Manitou Light | 2004 | Buy |
| “I Hope to Do My Country Service” : The Civil War Letters of John Bennitt, M.D., Surgeon, 19th Michigan Infantry | 2005 | Buy |
| The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy | 2005 | Buy |
| Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton | 2005 | Buy |
| Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan’s Rocks and Fossils | 2005 | Buy |
| My Forty Years With Ford | 2006 | Buy |
| House of Fields: Memories of a Rural Education | 2006 | Buy |
| A Pocketful of Passage | 2007 | Buy |
| Detroit on Stage: The Players Club, 1910-2005 | 2007 | Buy |
| A Badger Boy in Blue: The Letters of Chauncey H. Cooke | 2007 | Buy |
| Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir | 2007 | Buy |
| When You Come Home: A Wartime Courtship in Letters 1941-45 | 2007 | Buy |
| Who’s Jim Hines? | 2008 | Buy |
| Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors | 2009 | Buy |
| Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation | 2009 | Buy |
| The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights | 2010 | Buy |
| Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent | 2011 | Buy |
| Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847-2006 | 2011 | Buy |
| The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812: In Defense of William Hull | 2011 | Buy |
| Lake Superior Profiles : People on the Big Lake | 2012 | Buy |
| The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan: People, Law, and Politics | 2012 | Buy |
| Among the Enemy: A Michigan Soldier’s Civil War Journal | 2013 | Buy |
| The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwomen in the 1920s: A Challenge and a Promise | 2013 | Buy |
| The Colored Car | 2013 | Buy |
| Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II | 2013 | Buy |
| “Old Slow Town”: Detroit during the Civil War | 2013 | Buy |
| Great Girls in Michigan History | 2015 | Buy |
| Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit | 2015 | Buy |
| Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years | 2015 | Buy |
| Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933 | 2015 | Buy |
| A Beaver Tale: The Castors of Conners Creek | 2016 | Buy |
| Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes | 2016 | Buy |
| Designing Detroit: Wirt Rowland and the Rise of Modern American Architecture | 2017 | Buy |
| To the Copper Country: Mihaela’s Journey | 2017 | Buy |
| Roads to Prosperity: Economic Development Lessons from Midsize Canadian Cities | 2017 | Buy |
| Survival and Regeneration: Detroit’s American Indian Community | 2017 | Buy |
| Whaleback Ships and the American Steel Barge Company | 2018 | Buy |
| Bold Boys in Michigan History | 2018 | Buy |
| John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age | 2018 | Buy |
| Rosie, A Detroit Herstory | 2018 | Buy |
| Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit | 2020 | Buy |
| What the Chickadee Knows | 2020 | Buy |
| A Lincoln Legacy: The History of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan | 2020 | Buy |
| I Hope This Reaches You: An American Soldier’s Account of World War I | 2020 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Time Jumper | 1980 | Buy |
| The Tartarus Incident | 1983 | Buy |
| The Pandora Stone | 1984 | Buy |
| Starjacked | 1987 | Buy |
| Clarion | 1988 | Buy |
| Bloodright | 2011 | Buy |
| A Plague of Gods | 2016 | Buy |
William Greenleaf writes both science fiction and Great Lakes regional history. His science fiction novels, published in the 1980s, include The Tartarus Incident, The Pandora Stone, Starjacked, and Clarion. He later returned to fiction with Bloodright (2011) and A Plague of Gods (2016).
His non-fiction catalog is extensive, with nearly 80 titles covering Michigan history, Great Lakes maritime culture, the Detroit automotive industry, civil rights, and regional biography. These books span from Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens (1958) to works published in 2020, documenting the people, industries, and communities of the Great Lakes region.