Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens | 1958 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 2 | The Detroit Riot of 1967 | 1969 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 3 | Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence | 1972 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 4 | Waiting for the Morning Train | 1972 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 5 | Call It North Country | 1986 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 6 | Danny and the Boys: Being Some Legends of Hungry Hollow | 1987 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 7 | Michigan Voices: Our State’s History in the Words of the People Who Lived It | 1987 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 8 | Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit | 1990 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 9 | Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit | 1991 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 10 | John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic | 1991 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 11 | Queen of the Lakes | 1994 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 12 | Turkey Stearnes and the Detroit Stars: The Negro Leagues in Detroit, 1919-1933 | 1994 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 13 | The Northern Lights: Lighthouses of the Upper Great Lakes | 1994 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 14 | Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit | 1997 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 15 | The Long Winter Ends | 1998 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 16 | All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement | 1998 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 17 | Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson | 1998 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 18 | Father Abraham’s Children: Michigan Episodes in the Civil War | 1998 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 19 | Huron: The Seasons of a Great Lake | 1999 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 20 | A Sailor’s Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters | 1999 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 21 | “Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights”: Michigan, 1948-1968 | 2000 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 22 | Graveyard of the Lakes | 2000 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 23 | Great Lakes Journey: A New Look at America’s Freshwater Coast | 2000 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 24 | History of the Finns in Michigan | 2001 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 25 | Uppermost Canada: The Western District and the Detroit Frontier, 1800-1850 | 2002 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 26 | Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors | 2002 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 27 | Michigan’s Early Military Forces: A Roster and History of Troops Activated Prior to the American Civil War | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 28 | Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 29 | The French Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914 | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 30 | Beyond the Windswept Dunes: The Story of Maritime Michigan | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 31 | A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen Gifford Simmons and the Last Execution under Michigan Law | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 32 | Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company | 2003 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 33 | Angels in the Architecture: A Photographic Elegy to an American Asylum | 2004 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 34 | Pulling Down the Barn: Memories of a Rural Childhood | 2004 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 35 | To Keep the South Manitou Light | 2004 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 36 | “I Hope to Do My Country Service” : The Civil War Letters of John Bennitt, M.D., Surgeon, 19th Michigan Infantry | 2005 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 37 | The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy | 2005 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 38 | Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton | 2005 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 39 | Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan’s Rocks and Fossils | 2005 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 40 | My Forty Years With Ford | 2006 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 41 | House of Fields: Memories of a Rural Education | 2006 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 42 | A Pocketful of Passage | 2007 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 43 | Detroit on Stage: The Players Club, 1910-2005 | 2007 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 44 | A Badger Boy in Blue: The Letters of Chauncey H. Cooke | 2007 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 45 | Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir | 2007 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 46 | When You Come Home: A Wartime Courtship in Letters 1941-45 | 2007 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 47 | Who’s Jim Hines? | 2008 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 48 | Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors | 2009 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 49 | Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation | 2009 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 50 | The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights | 2010 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 51 | Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent | 2011 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 52 | Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847-2006 | 2011 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 53 | The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812: In Defense of William Hull | 2011 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 54 | Lake Superior Profiles : People on the Big Lake | 2012 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 55 | The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan: People, Law, and Politics | 2012 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 56 | Among the Enemy: A Michigan Soldier’s Civil War Journal | 2013 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 57 | The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwomen in the 1920s: A Challenge and a Promise | 2013 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 58 | The Colored Car | 2013 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 59 | Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II | 2013 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 60 | “Old Slow Town”: Detroit during the Civil War | 2013 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 61 | Great Girls in Michigan History | 2015 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 62 | Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit | 2015 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 63 | Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years | 2015 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 64 | Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933 | 2015 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 65 | A Beaver Tale: The Castors of Conners Creek | 2016 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 66 | Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes | 2016 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 67 | Designing Detroit: Wirt Rowland and the Rise of Modern American Architecture | 2017 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 68 | To the Copper Country: Mihaela’s Journey | 2017 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 69 | Roads to Prosperity: Economic Development Lessons from Midsize Canadian Cities | 2017 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 70 | Survival and Regeneration: Detroit’s American Indian Community | 2017 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 71 | Whaleback Ships and the American Steel Barge Company | 2018 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 72 | Bold Boys in Michigan History | 2018 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 73 | John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age | 2018 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 74 | Rosie, A Detroit Herstory | 2018 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 75 | Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit | 2020 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 76 | What the Chickadee Knows | 2020 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 77 | A Lincoln Legacy: The History of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan | 2020 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
| 78 | I Hope This Reaches You: An American Soldier’s Account of World War I | 2020 | William Greenleaf | Buy |
The Great Lakes series by William Greenleaf is a massive collection of non-fiction titles covering the history, culture, and people of the Great Lakes region. With 78 books spanning from 1958 to 2020, it covers topics from the Detroit automotive industry to Great Lakes lighthouses, from Civil War journals to the history of invasive species in the lakes.
Notable titles include Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II, Graveyard of the Lakes, and The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy. The series also features books on civil rights, immigration history, architecture, and maritime culture, forming a comprehensive portrait of the Great Lakes and its communities.