Junto Bracketology: Here are My First Round Picks in Brackets Three and Four

  |   3 Comments

Here are my first round picks (Brackets 3 and 4) in the Junto March Madness Tournament. 

BRACKET THREE:
Lyons over Rockman
Gordon-Reed over Rothman
Edelson over Brown
Burnard over Jarvis
Smallwood over Hammond
Brown over Foner
Johnson over Waldstreicher
Gallay over Snyder

BRACKET FOUR:
Freeman over McDonnell
Breen over Griffin
Zabin over Edling
Maier over Bouton
Zagarri over Brewer
Irvin over Cotlar
Furstenburg over O’Brien
Wood over Holton

Comments:

  • I think Maier has the best chance to win the entire tournament
  • Holton over Wood will be the popular pick among the left-leaning academic establishment, but Wood’s Empire of Liberty is magisterial
  • Gordon-Reed will crush the competition in Bracket Three.  I don’t expect her to have a close match until the Final Four
  • Breen wins the battle of Northwestern over one of his best students.
  • I like Freeman’s Affairs of Honor, but not as a #1 seed.  She will lose to Breen in the second round.  The same goes for Rockman. 

 

RECOMMENDED READING

Woody Holton reflects on Liberty is Sweet REVIEW: On the Flattening of Jim Crow History What the chair of the Grove City College Board of Trustees believes about diversity, inclusion, and equity

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michael Hattem says

    Interesting, John. I think you're right about Gordon-Reed. As for Freeman (putting my advisor bias aside), she got the no. 1 seed because she tied for having the most nominations and seconds along with Alan Taylor's book on 1812.

  2. Jimmy Dick says

    Ah, I wondered why that book was a number one seed. I think it is an outstanding book, but I'm not sure it was a number one seed with the others in the bracket. Of course, that is what makes this so interesting.

    By the way, I plugged this tournament to the University of Missouri Press folks at the Missouri History Conference yesterday during lunch. They thought it was pretty interesting.

  3. K Engel says

    I'm with you on many of those, but I'm really rooting for Bouton, despite the obvious strength of Maier's book. Bouton's book cohesively makes a great argument, and its extremely effective at generating good discussion in the classroom.

Leave a Reply