North Carolina Books

The Author, the Late Jim McAllister, was a journalist with The Greenville News, Greenville, SC. I knew about this book and had searched for it locally for several years. To my surprise, I found five of them on Amazon and bought three of them. It is a very neat book of amusing short stories or folk tales from the upstate area of South Carolina and a few across the border into North Carolina. I plan to keep one copy for myself and will give away the other two for someone else to enjoy. The book will make a great gift for a hospital patient or for anyone who enjoys reading.

Ms Anderson has done a wonderful job of weaving the threads of geography, politics, economics, history, religion, etc. into a solid cloth of Durham county history.

This book was well reasearched and has extensive endnotes that add a treasure trove of information additional to the text body. (In fact, my only negative critical comment about this book is that the author used endnotes instead of footnotes, causing one to either ignore the endnotes for later or risk carpal tunnel from flipping back and forth!)

Ms. Anderson delves into the social and economic complexities behind Durham's prosperity and its poverty -- which often shared time and space -- and she manages to humanize the complicated personalities who so greatly influenced the city's growth. The Dukes, Carrs, Mangums, etc. are well known to have been the driving busienss forces behind the tobacco and mill industries that made Durham properous, but it is refreshing to learn something of their personalities and their struggles.

Anyone who grew up in Durham knows what a huge contribution black business leaders made to the economic success of the area. This is the only book where I have seen the subject treated as a integral portion of the area's history and culture, and not something set apart from all other events and influences, outside the "white" history.

There are some wonderful photographs of historical buildings and people - both influencial and "just plain folks".

Every historical account has dry patches. I found two of them (albeit small) to be at the time frame around 1920-1940. I urge the reader to work through this as the information there is important to understanding the material that follows.

Despite the fact that I was born in Durham and lived in the area for over 30 years, I only developed a curiosity in the history of the county recently. As a native Durhamite, I found this book to be a wonderful education into the area. I believe a non-native would find it a very readable and fascinating view into the birth and growth of a Southern city that defied a lot of stereotypes and a lot of odds. To be honest, when I left the area Durham was headed on a downhill turn of high crime, strained race relations, poor schools and a wide gap between have and have nots -- many of the same problems the county faced at its inception. It will be interesting to see if the region manages to persevere with the same success as in the turn of the century.

Each chapter talks about a different subject in a clear, logical manner. I had this book for a class on History of American Technology, among others, and it trully was a favorite, one that I'll keep for my own personal use in the classroom.

Precise detailed listings, excellent index, should be in every rock-hounders back-pack. However, it's only failing are the rather crude maps. The maps would be more helpful if they included topographic elevation bars. But, all in all, a very delightful reference tome.

Ecological Revolutions is an absolutely fundamental text in the fields of Colonial and Environmental American history. This book, along with William Cronon's Changes in the Land, transformed historians' understandings of Native American relationships to the land, as well as the ecological, economic, and reproductive changes brought by European colonists. Changes in the Land is more entertaining to read, but Ecological Revolutions is more advanced methodologically. I recommend both books heartily.

A wonderful read for die-hard fans of Wharton, but certainly not a casual read for most.

Although this work is basically a broad survey of the sources on early American education, Bailyn makes some important suggestions that ache to be brought full circle. He demonstrates how scholarship on this subject have been marred by a tendency to view everything in the light of a gradual progression to compulsory public education. He also notes how this has caused a large amount of distortions and myths to be created, with the result of quite near everyone making absurd and innance assumptions about the past. Moreover, the true nature of education in early education has been largely lost to the world, despite the fact that there are ample sources waiting to be exploited. This book should be especially fascinating to anti-public education libertarians, who, of course, view the growth of public education of the modern form as a serious regression in society. This work could serve as a starting point for a history taking up the libertarian point of view; an invaluable undertaking no doubt.

This work, by late-professor Baloyra, is one of the most complete and well written accounts of the military-political struggles in El Salvador during the so-called Central American Crisis of the 1980s. Its combination of history and politics is essential reading for any student of the area and/or time period.

Caroline Kettlewell has captured the nature of the EV Challenge in perpetuity and written a book that shows how every one of us can make a huge difference if we just find the right inspiration.

Chris Meekins's new book, Elizabeth City, North Carolina and the Civil War: A History of Battle and Occupation, highlights the war experienced by a local population on the east side of the Old North State. Meekins walks his readers through local history. His introduction gives us a glimpse of the northeastern section of North Carolina prior to the war. From this introduction, we learn of the importance of the canal system that connected the area with the port at Norfolk. This canal system was used by both Union and Confederates soldiers throughout the war.

Through the next 134 pages, readers look at the war, both in terms of military action and in violence against the civilian population. The war in and around Elizabeth City was a constant struggle between the two opposing sides. The Federals would arrive one day, only to leave shortly thereafter. Confederates, usually irregulars, would move in after the Federals left. When the Federals were present, they would usually demand loyalty oaths from the civilian population. But once the Federals left, those who took the Oath would be subjected to retribution by pro-Confederates.

Overall, I really enjoyed Elizabeth City, North Carolina and the Civil War: A History of Battle and Occupation. The period illustrations from sources such as Harper's Weekly add a nice touch. Many of the local actions are described in detail. The book is endnoted, but there is no index, something the History Press needs to start including.
Interested in northeastern North Carolina and the Civil War? Check out Meekins's new book.