South Books - Page 16

Time: Hurricane Katrina: The Storm That Changed America

Editors of Time Magazine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

DESCRIPTION: On Sept. 2, 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued a "desperate S.O.S." His city, one of America’s most historic and gracious urban centers, had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Now 80% of it lay underwater, while some citizens huddled on rooftops waiting for rescue, and others turned the flooded streets into canals of anarchy. In the first decade of the 21st century, despair, disease and death had transformed a great American city into a scene of third-world privation, even as heroic rescue workers battled to save lives, restore order and aid the suffering.

Now Time chronicles the story of the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history in Hurricane Katrina, An American Tragedy. Here, in stunning pictures and gripping first-hand accounts, is the terrible tale of Katrina’s deadly wrath and savage aftermath. Here is America’s Gulf Coast — from New Orleans to Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi — in ruins. Here are the struggling survivors and their valiant rescuers, the looters and the police who fought to control them, the homeless refugees who poured across the southeast and the resourceful agencies that took them in.

It is an epic tale, told as only Time can tell it. Award-winning pictures reveal the scope of the disaster. Oral histories offer unforgettable accounts of nature’s power and man’s resourcefulness. Illuminating graphics show how hurricanes form — and why New Orleans flooded. Powerful reporting puts readers on the scene, while insightful analysis explores the questions left in Katrina’s wake: could the tragedy have been prevented, and why was aid so late to arrive?

Moving and informative, sweeping in scope and ringing with the voices of those who were there, Hurricane Katrina, An American Tragedy is the definitive account of a disaster that will haunt Americans for decades to come.

The Highland Scots of North Carolina, 1732-1776

Duane Meyer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Background for my family line 5 out of 5 stars.
64 of 68 people found this review helpful.

This book has excellent information on where my line came from in the Highlands. The description of the economy, the living conditions, the government and clan disharmony, as well as the religion question, all provide a good picture of where our Scots came from and the conditions of their lives. My McRae family came to Carolina in 1774, so this timeline used in this book covered the years preceding, as well as a few following their immigration. I was very interested in the motives for migration. This provided many more than I had previously read about. Because the years led directly into our revolution, it is especially relevant to read this information on the Scots question whether to serve as loyalist or as revolutionary. This proved, as well as disproved several theories which are in print. I appreciate having this book in my reference library. It has more specific descriptive information about the Scots' living conditions both in Scotland and in North Carolina than any other source I have consulted.

Editorial Review:

Using a variety of sources - official papers, travel documents, diaries and newspapers - Duane Meyer presents a complete reconstruction of the settlement of Highlanders in North Carolina. He examines their motives for migaration, their life in America and their curious allegiance to George III.

Arkansas: A Narrative History

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Banana Republic 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 11 people found this review helpful.

History books from provincial history departments frequently suffer from effusions of PC revisionism. This one is unusual in that despite its ghastly book jacket, soberly approaches (perhaps too soberly) the most colorful region of the United States. The Wild West of film and pulp westerns lasted only about fifteen years while the Arkansas Wild West has extended from the 1820s until the present day. But, it is also more than a history of scoundrels in elected office, corrupt fundamentalist preachers, bozos, ... and bumpkins. It chronicles a society that produced ..., local Rockefeller philanthropy, the triumph over hookworm and pellagra. Indeed, the only place in America that Bill Clinton could be from is Arkansas. Nobody would ever believe it if this were a movie.
On the down side, the text is uneven, and often stilted. There are references to African Americans but none to Anglo Americans, Teutonic Americans or Mongrel Americans. In short this is a relatively good history for the times.

Tobacco Culture

T.H. Breen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A scholarly look at the American Revolution 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I'm glad to see this was reprinted, as I found it to be a quite interesting look at reasons why American elites supported a war that most likely would have cost them everything they owned. The answer: they didn't own anything by the end of the 18th century. The reason why is that they had bought everything on credit against their tobacco crop. When the economy nosedived, the British merchants who held the debts wanted their due. The ensuing resentment by the planters led to support for the American revolutionary movement.

Breen used exhaustive research in putting this book together, and even threw in some neat information on the Founding Fathers. Did you know Washington failed as a tobacco farmer? That he continually loaned money to a deadbeat that never repaid him? It's in this book.

Another aspect of this book I found interesting was the step by step process of growing tobacco in the 18th century. It's hard to believe that anyone made a successful go of it. A neat book with a neat argument.

Editorial Review:

"T. H. Breen's important new book attempts to explain why the great Virginia Planters embraced the Revolutionary cause with so much enthusiasm. He argues that growing indebtedness to British merchants after 1750 jeopardized the planters' traditional dominance, finally precipitating `a major cultural crisis' in the years immediately preceding Independence. Breen's major contribution is to delineate the `mentality' of the great planters of the period when private and public distress converged. . . . It is a superb contribution to the literature of the American Revolution."--Peter S. Onuf, William and Mary Quarterly

The South Carolina Encyclopedia

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The South Carolina Encyclopedia is a comprehensive single-volume reference for just about anything anyone would want to know about the Palmetto State’s rich cultures and storied heritage, from prehistory to the present day. The encyclopedia is the result of a six-year collaboration between the Humanities Council SC, the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina Press. Under the editorial direction of distinguished historian Walter Edgar, 598 contributors have come together to write more than one million words depicting the people, places, and things that define South Carolina.

The encyclopedia is an authoritative, entertaining compilation of essays on a broad array of topics ranging from war and politics to arts and recreation, from agriculture and industry to popular culture and ethnicity. Among the nearly two thousand entries are such diverse subjects as the Boykin spaniel, John C. Calhoun, Sarah Moore Grimké, Hootie and the Blowfish, Indian mounds, Matthew J. Perry, Rainbow Row, Surfside Beach, and white lightning. The palmetto bug, Lizard Man, and okra are all here, as are hurricanes, the Orangeburg Massacre, and yellow fever. Included as well are essays on every South Carolina county, every town with a population of twenty-five hundred or greater, and all elected governors and U.S. senators from the state. Famous figures and infamous characters, historic events and tragic moments, celebrated creatures and provocative lore, staple crops and new industries, the encyclopedia catalogs all of this and much more.

As diverse as the populations that live within the thirty-one thousand square miles that make up the Palmetto State, the entries included in The South Carolina Encyclopedia were chosen to best represent the many facets of our shared experiences that remind us of who we are, where we come from, what we have in common, and why we are distinctive.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia is a comprehensive introduction to the state for students and newcomers, and a treasure trove of rich details and lively insights for those already steeped in South Carolina’s history and culture. With its accessible format, four hundred black-and-white and forty color illustrations, and seventy-eight original maps, this volume invites a broad readership and placement in classrooms, libraries, archives, government offices, businesses, economic development agencies, media newsrooms, and—of course—home bookshelves. As the single most inclusive reference for all things South Carolinian, this truly is a people’s encyclopedia.

Pawleys Island: A Century of History and Photographs

Lee G. Brockington

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Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America

Benjamin Woolley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great stories about our first steps... 4 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I came across this book after hearing the author interviewed on NPR on the anniversary of the Jamestown colony. From just the few minutes I managed to catch from that conversation the author had me rethinking my vague and mostly uninvestigated thoughts on that early settlement.
Wooley has a great ability to take well researched and documented accounts and weave a compelling narrative without overly indulging in fantasy or sketches compiled of heresay or assumptions.
What took me in about this book was just how much Byzantine politics and motives the early administrators of the colony had coming over from England. (i.e aliases, spies, traitors, defectors, etc.)
If you are interested in what the first steps were in The New World before Declarations and Revolutions and why they were made, I would check this out. It's an essential foundation if you are, like me, consuming our countries earliest intentions and ambitions that led us to where we are now.

Editorial Review:

Four centuries ago, and thirteen years before the Mayflower, a group of men—led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy—arrived in Virginia aboard a fleet of three ships and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River. Despite their shortcomings, and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost that laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources, and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of Jamestown—revealing instead a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the Old World who found themselves interlopers in a new one.

Virginia Tech (VA) (College History Series)

Nelson Harris

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Editorial Review:

In early October 1872, Charles Minor opened a small land-grant institution, consisting of 29 students, 3 faculty members, and a single building, in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. Now, 130 years later, the once small agricultural college is recognized as Virginia’s largest university—Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Out of its humble beginning of donated livestock, seeds, machinery, and books, Virginia Tech has emerged as a leading research university that is consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top engineering and business schools. The university is also home to a tremendous athletic program that continually produces many of the nation’s top ranked athletes. Today, Virginia Tech also serves as a major economic engine for the economy of Southwestern Virginia. The Campus History Series: Virginia Tech illustrates the university’s emergence through over 200 archival photographs, including images that capture the essence of student life, featuring happenings such as the old cadet rat parades, the first ring dance, the Highty-Tighties, the Huckleberry, sports events, and even the evolution of the school’s mascot, the Hokie Bird.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America

Sylviane A. Diouf

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association, this acclaimed volume tells the moving story of the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves--more than fifty years after the United States abolished the international slave trade. Sylviane A. Diouf reconstructs the lives of 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria who were brought ashore in Alabama in 1860 under cover of night, recounting their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describing their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women. After emancipation, the group reunited from various plantations, bought land, and founded their own settlement, known as African Town. They ruled it according to customary African laws, spoke their own regional language and, when giving interviews, insisted that writers use their African names so that their families would know that they were still alive. African Town is still home to a community of Clotilda descendants.

The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, And the Fourteenth Amendment (Landmark Law Cases and American Society)

Ronald M. Labbe, Jonathan Lurie

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Editorial Review:

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, sought to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves; but its first important test did not arise until five years later. That test centered on a vitriolic dispute among the white butchers of mid-Reconstruction New Orleans.

The rough-and-tumble world of nineteenth-century New Orleans was a sanitation nightmare, with the city's slaughterhouses dumping animal remains into local backwaters. When Louisiana authorized a monopoly slaughterhouse to bring about sanitation reform, many independent butchers felt disenfranchised. Framing their case as an infringement of rights protected by the new amendment, they flooded the lower courts with nearly 300 suits. The surviving cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court pitted the butchers' right to labor against the state's "police power" to regulate public health. The result was a controversial decision that for the first time addressed the meaning and import of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Speaking for the majority in the Court's 5-4 decision, Justice Samuel F. Miller upheld the state's actions as a fair use of its "police power." He also argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended exclusively as a means of protecting and redressing the suffering of former slaves. The result was a very restricted interpretation of the amendment's "privileges and immunities," "due process," and "equal protection" clauses. In striking contrast, the minority, led by Justices Stephen Field and Joseph Bradley, claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment had been intended to apply to all Americans, not just former slaves, and therefore protected the butchers' right to labor in their chosen profession.

Engagingly written and concisely crafted for students and general readers, this newly abridged edition provides a very accessible guide to one of the Supreme Court's most famous cases.

This book is part of the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series.