I love the economy of words. Say what you mean, say it clearly, and say it concisely to have the most impact.
Charles Reagan Wilson’s “very short introduction” to the American South checks all those boxes but manages to present a panorama of regional history stretching back for centuries in a slim 126 pages. The book is printed in a small format so diminutive that it could almost fit in one’s pocket. But readers should not be fooled by the size of the publication.
It is packed with information about the cultural, social, political, and economic history of the distinctive region that is its focus and a surprisingly thorough and comprehensive overview of the region’s past. A great introduction, indeed.
The American South is a distinctive place with a dramatic history, and has significance beyond its regional context in the twenty first century. The American South: A Very Short Introduction explores the history of the South as a cultural crossroads, a meeting place between western Europe and West Africa. The South's beginnings illuminate the expansion of Europe into the New World, creating a colonial slave society that distinguished it from other parts of the United States but fostered commonalities with other colonial societies. The Civil War and civil rights movement transformed the South in differing ways and remain a part…
No matter how well I know a historical topic, I find there is always something new to learn.
So it is with the Civil War, a conflict I have been reading about just about my entire life. But a preponderance of Civil War scholarship focuses on a rather narrow series of major battles, leaving a large portion of the war—especially its forgotten smaller clashes—relatively unexplored by comparison. I love O’Brien’s narrative history of the Campaign for Mobile.
It highlights the day-by-day drama and individual stories of the war’s last major combined-forces action which led to the surrender of one of the Confederacy’s most populous cities. Local history at its finest.
The last major battle of the Civil War at Fort Blakely, Alabama, on April 9, 1865, was quickly overshadowed by the concurrent surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox, and is largely forgotten today. And yet the Federal campaign against Mobile, the last important Southern city that remained in Rebel hands, was a significant military operation involving 45,000 Union soldiers and 9,000 Confederates. Faced with overwhelming odds, diehard Rebels refused to surrender, and--even with the end of the war clearly at hand--Federal soldiers remained willing to fight and die to capture the last enemy stronghold. O'Brien explores the battle…
The age of European exploration and colonization of North America is filled with epic tales of adventure, as people from entirely different civilizations first came in contact.
Europeans dreamed of creating colonial empires and gaining wealth and influence in a new land about which they knew nothing about, while natives were at first unsure how to respond to these curious visitors and what exactly their unexpected presence meant.
In A Land So Strange, author Andres Resendez recounts the tale of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, a man who sojourned across the North American continent in the early 1500s after the disastrous failure of the expedition that brought him to the shores of the Gulf. It’s a riveting narrative of a forgotten episode that unfolds as a legendary adventure.
This is the gripping story of a doomed mission to North America - and the four survivors who journeyed for a decade across the new world just discovered by Christopher Columbus. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was a fortune-seeking Spanish nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition sent to claim for Spain a vast area of today's southern United States. Delayed by a hurricane and then knocked off course by a colossal mistake of navigation, the mission was doomed to failure when its' leaders decided to separate the men from their ships on the Florida coast. The expedition quickly turned…
The British colony of West Florida is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America's Revolutionary era. The colony's eventful years as a part of the British Empire form an important and compelling interlude in Gulf Coast history that has for too long been overlooked. The colony's history showcases a tumultuous political scene; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle and perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of battles on land and water which brought about the end of its days under the Union Jack.
Fourteenth Colony offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of colonial America.
