South Books - Page 13

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial

H.L. Mencken

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition."-Alistair Cooke

Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken's coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and hit movie.

Mencken's no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all-including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret "holy roller" service.

Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own-until now.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee includes all of Mencken's reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial-an obituary so withering Mencken was forced to rewrite it (both versions are included, although the rewrite seems, if anything, even less forgiving).

With the rise of "intelligent design," Mencken's work has never seemed more unnervingly timely-or timeless.

Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Music in American Life)

Craig Havighurst

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Started by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company in 1925, WSM became one of the most influential and exceptional radio stations in the history of broadcasting and country music. WSM gave Nashville the moniker “Music City USA” as well as a rich tradition of music, news, and broad-based entertainment. With the rise of country music broadcasting and recording between the 1920s and ‘50s, WSM, Nashville, and country music became inseparable, stemming from WSM’s launch of the Grand Ole Opry, popular daily shows like Noontime Neighbors, and early morning artist-driven shows such as Hank Williams on Mother’s Best Flour.

 

Sparked by public outcry following a proposal to pull country music and the Opry from WSM-AM in 2002, Craig Havighurst scoured new and existing sources to document the station’s profound effect on the character and self-image of Nashville. Introducing the reader to colorful artists and businessmen from the station’s history, including Owen Bradley, Minnie Pearl, Jim Denny, Edwin Craig, and Dinah Shore, the volume invites the reader to reflect on the status of Nashville, radio, and country music in American culture.

Miami Then and Now (Compact) (Then & Now Thunder Bay)

Carolyn Klepser, Arva Moore Parks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Memories 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I was born and reared in Miami, the fourth generation of my Pioneer South Florida family. I was delighted with this book, it brought back so many memories.

The old photographs are gems, and the descriptions well written and informative. I enjoyed the "then" pictures with the "now", in some instances they are almost unbelievable, the Coconut Grove Womens Club little Club House which I went to frequently is a good example, long may it survive!

Captiving Photo Book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

If you have lived in Miami or have an affinity toward Miami, this is a must-have book. Few people in Miami like Arva Moore Parks have taken the time to document the City's rich history as the fastest-growing metropolis in the United States over the last 100 years. The "then and now" photos offer splendid matches, with interesting and informative historical notes in the caption. Great coffee-table book too!

Editorial Review:

A look at the history of Miami, with stunning contemporary and historic photography and captions describing the development of this famous city. Part of the highly successful "Then and Now" series, this book looks at the changes in this exciting city.

Atlanta Then and Now (Compact) (Then & Now Thunder Bay)

Michael Rose

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Editorial Review:

Atlanta is not only the South's leading city, but also a world-class metropolis. Rich in history and culture, the city has grown and changed dramatically over the last century, while still retaining strong ties to its past. Atlanta Then and Now provides a unique view of these changes. Black-and-white archival photos from the first half of the last century are shown side by side with photos of the same scene today. Five Points, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthplace, the State Capitol, and Peachtree Street are all here. The lovely homes and dogwood-filled neighborhoods are also featured.

Key West: History of an Island of Dreams

Maureen Ogle

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Parrotheads, Hemingway aficionados, and sun worshipers view Key West as a tropical paradise, and scores of writers have set tales of mystery and romance on the island. The city’s real story—told by Maureen Ogle in this lively and engaging illustrated account—is as fabulous as fiction. In the two centuries since the city’s pioneer founders battled Indians, pirates, and deadly disease, Key West has stood at the crossroads of American history. In 1861, Union troops seized control of strategically located Key West. In the early 1890s, Key West Cubans helped José Martí launch the Cuban revolution, and a few years later the battleship Maine steamed out of Key West harbor on its last, tragic voyage. At the turn of the century, a technological marvel—the overseas railroad—was built to connect mainland Florida to Key West, and in the 1920s and 1930s, painters, rumrunners, and writers (including Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost) discovered Key West. During World War II, the federal government and the military war machine permanently altered the island’s landscape, and in the second half of the 20th century, bohemians, hippies, gays, and jet-setters began writing a new chapter in Key West’s social history.

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935

James D. Anderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order—supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials—conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and thei descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires.

The Tropic of Cracker (Florida History and Culture)

Al Burt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Pleasure to Read 5 out of 5 stars.
46 of 48 people found this review helpful.

Al Burt is a Florida institution. For many years I bought the Miami Herald on Sunday just so I could read his column. Now, many of my favorite columns are available in something more permanent than the back page of a magazine, and honed and polished and brought up to date to boot. When I'm not thumbing through it, this book rests right next to my copies of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Marjory Stoneman Douglas--Al Burt's kindred souls among those who love Florida and explain it to others in ways that the Chamber of Commerce never will master. More, more. Please!

"Old Florida" with a side of humor 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I loved Al Burt's newspaper columns because he wrote about a Florida that only someone who got there before 1975 would even recognize. They are even more fun to read now. Makes me want to hop in the car and drive to Micanopy!

Editorial Review:

Miami Herald columnist Al Burt's tribute to "Crackers", or lovers of "The Real Florida" : Zora N. Hurston, MK Rawlings, Virgil Hawkins, John DeGrove, Harry Crews, & lots of everyday folks who have in common their memory of Florida as a wild, rare place.

Trapped!: The Story of Floyd Collins

Robert K. Murray, Roger W. Brucker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Trapped: The Story of Floyd Collins 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

When asked about his earliest childhood memory, my late father would tell of his dad carrying him to his uncle's house to listen to radio news reports of the attempted rescue of Floyd Collins from a cave in nearby Kentucky. This book brings to life those events that captured the nation's attention in Jan.-Feb. 1925. Trapped is a well-written, well-documented account of the tragedy that occured in the central Kentucky hills and before watchful eyes of the nation. Its a gripping account that manages to capture the facts of the event, including great details of America's first modern media circus, while still attending to the many colorful characters who played a role in Collin's life, the rescue attempt, and the aftermath.

Editorial Review:

With a new epilogue revealing additional information about the Floyd Collins story that has come to light since the book was first published!

The sensationalism and hysteria of the rescue attempt in early 1925 generated America's first true media spectacle, making Floyd Collins's story one of the seminal events of the century.

The crowds that gathered outside Sand Cave turned the rescue site into a carnival. Collins's situation was front-page news throughout the country, hourly bulletins interrupted radio programs, and Congress recessed to hear the latest word.

TRAPPED! is both a tense adventure and a brilliant historical recreation of the past.

Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine

Scott E. Casper

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

It wasn't until I finished this book that I realized how good it was 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a history of Mount Vernon following the death of George Washington. Because it is a story of the everyday life on and operation of the estate, it is a story of 200 years of African American history. There is a parallel history here too, about the pioneer days of the historic preservation movement.

Early vistors to Mount Vernon believed what they wanted to believe. Knowing Washington's will had freed his slaves (upon the death of Martha, who released them early) one could ignore reality and presume that those who labored in the field and encountered visitors were free. For 60 years it bubbles into public consciousness only every now and then that they are not.

In the first part of the book, Sarah is in the background as we learn about Washington's heirs, Martha's dower slaves, crops, the buying, selling and renting of people, and the precursors of the tourist trade yet to come. Sarah becomes the central vehicle for the story in the later half of the book. Sarah is a perfect vehicle for this history because her life illustrates her times.

Augustine Washington assumed control of this estate at age 21. From his mother, he received Sarah's mother Hannah, and noted her additions to his assets when she bore children. In 1844 he hired Hannah out to a cousin for $24 for the year. She returned from this forced labor pregnant and delivered a mulatto child naming her Sarah with her grandfather's last name, Parker. Later, when Mount Vernon was sold to a preservation society, which in part preserved it from the raveges of the Civil War, Sarah was also sold. In freedom she returned to her home, Mount Vernon, and became an employee of the new society.

The saga of Sarah's family, a metaphor for the contemporaneous sagas of thousands of African Americans, is told against the growth of Mount Vernon as a national shrine and tourist destination. While Mount Vernon is buffered, it cannot help but be effected by the successionist fervor, the civil war, the war's unsettling aftermath, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II. Scott Casper takes the reader through all this, up to the present nascent awareness of the role of African Americans in history. On p. 219 there is a eloquent piece on Sarah who we know she was and who she may have been.

This is a short book, but its ideas will stay with you a long time.

Editorial Review:

Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon brilliantly restores the lives and contributions of African Americans to the legacy of Mount Vernon. Digging beneath the well-known stories of George Washington and the era of America’s birth, Scott E. Casper recovers the remarkable history of Sarah Johnson, who spent more than fifty years at Mount Vernon, in slavery and after emancipation. Through her life and those of her family and friends, Casper provides not only an intimate picture of Mount Vernon during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—years that are rarely part of its public story—but also a window into a community of people who played an essential part in creating and maintaining this American landmark.

The Story of the Plott Hound: Strike & Stay

Bob Plott

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fascinating Story by a Great Storyteller 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Strike & Stay is without doubt the best history of the wonderful Plott hound that exists. As a North Carolina native, the Plott Hound's having been chosen as the "State Dog" piqued my interest years ago. Now, enlightened by picture-rich Strike & Stay, my interest has only increased. This excellent narrative traces the dog's history from the Black Forest of Germany in 1750 to modern-day recognition as one of the finest dog breeds in the U.S.A, and the world. It is a story engagingly told by the great, great, great grandson of Johannes Plott, whose family first developed the bear-hunting breed for German barons. Sixteen year-old Johannes Plott's 1750 migration to America, his devotion to breeding the finest, most loyal hunting dog in the world, and his descendents' unwavering continuation of that devotion, is a great story for dog lovers, history buffs, hunters and non-hunters. Bob Plott is to be commended for this outstanding work!

Editorial Review:

Recognized now as one of the premier hunting dogs in America, the Plott bear hound is unique among hunting dog breeds because it descends from Germanic stock rather than the traditional English foxhound. The breed's story began when its original breeder, Johannes Plott, and his brother Enoch left Germany in 1750 with their prized hunting dogs. This trip across the Atlantic began the two-hundred-year journey that would culminate in the North Carolina mountains with the development of what is now arguably the world's finest breed of hunting dog.

This fascinating story of the Plott family and the Plott hound is a classic American tale of adventurers and underdogs- a story that Bob Plott, the great-great-greatgrandson of Johannes Plott, is uniquely qualified to tell.