Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cream of the crop. Winners today will move on to the Final Four.

Results will be announced tomorrow. Next week, besides the final two days of voting, we will feature more commentary, as well as another podcast. Be prepared.

To remind you how we reached this point, this is what the brackets look like:

BRACKET ONE

BRACKET TWO

BRACKET THREE

BRACKET FOUR

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ELITE EIGHT

1. Edumund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

2. Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812

1. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

7. Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

1.William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England

10. Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History

4. Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire

6. Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Slave Market

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QUESTIONS

Besides the basics—what is the most exciting matchup? what is the most likely upset?—here are a few discussion starters:

• Bracket One was the only bracket in which the top seed met the second seed. Why do you think there were so many “upsets”?
• Do we see a general theme in the victors?
• Has your prediction for the winner changed after seeing the voting trends of this blog’s readership?