This Haunted Land: Reckoning with Ghosts and the Stories that Shape America Hardcover – September 1, 2026

Why do humans need ghosts? And what do ghosts have to teach us?“Gaines Quammen deftly guides us through the house of horrors that is America’s colonial past.”—ANNETTE MCGIVNEY, Plastic ShamanIn This Haunted Land, Betsy Gaines Quammen investigates some of America's most enduring ghost stories and uncovers how ghost stories can help us come to terms with our unsettled past. With curiosity, a bit of skepticism, and an open-hearted willingness to learn from the living and the dead, Gaines Quammen takes readers on a riveting, sometimes spooky journey into the haunted towns, lands, waters, and parts of history that we too often ignore. From a once-booming uranium mine community now entombed in Colorado’s Mesa County, to America’s oldest fort on the east coast of Florida, This Haunted Land interweaves memory, mourning, folklore, and social anxiety—and shows that politicized efforts to rewrite history can be defeated by listening to the spectres of the past. Read more