Alabama Books

Picture Taker is a collection of black-and-white photography by award-winning photojournalist Ken Elkins, celebrating the daily lives of small town and rural inhabitants of Alabama. Aside from a foreword by Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Rick Bragg and an afterword, no text distracts the reader from the poignant images of salt-of-the- earth people. Even the one-sentence captions for the photographs are grouped together at the back of the book, so as not to distract from the compelling visual experience. An exquisite portrait human pride, wit, and stoicism, amid the breathtaking Alabama countryside.

A nice coverage of the proud history of a local area. Written in a lively and altruistic prose, Martin carefully regards the many aspects of her hometown. A must read if one is a resident of Dothan, AL.

This volume is a great resource combining information from people with experience in this subject. The take on gender and rights in certain aspects of lodge construction seems a bit odd or out of place, an exercise in critical analysis for the reader who sometimes does jobs usually assigned to the opposite sex. The diverse approaches of the various authors provides insight to what is known about earthlodges, and how they fit into the bigger picture of Plains history. Not a quick read, but a good book for archaeology/ history / architecture buffs, teachers and professors. If you think an earthlodge is made of earth, you should read this book and find out the real story. If you ever wondered how people survived on the plains before insulation, heating and central air, this book is for you. Don't let the academic timbre scare you away if that's not your usual style.

"The Poetics of Epiphany" is a nice, well-argued book of thoughtful literary criticism. It follows somewhat in the tradition of Robert Langbaum, but handles the same theme of literary epiphany in one large, sustained, cohesive argument rather than in a variety of multifarious essays (as in Langbaum's The Word from Below: Essays on Modern Literature and Culture). Both approaches have their strengths, of course, but the overarching consistency of this book is impressive even if Nichols doesn't quite possess the same level of eloquence and flair in style. The prose is clear and dependable all the same, free of the excesses of impenetrable jargon that mar much work in literary studies nowadays.

The focus of Nichols' extended discussion is made plain enough by the rather straightforward title, of course: literary epiphany, an aesthetic experience that imbues the ordinary bits and pieces of one's experience (especially in nature) with an aura of significance, a spiritual sense of wholeness and unity as powerfully felt as it is fleeting. The modernist novelist James Joyce is known for having articulated and described this phenomenon and made it the basis of his literary craft, and so Nichols first explores the origins of this concept in William Wordsworth and his "spots of time" in the nineteenth century and then begins to trace its evolution through the works of Coleridge and Shelley, Browning, Tennyson and Hopkins, and finally to Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Seamus Heaney (among others). Throughout the book, the author is able to keep on track and stay focused while at the same time showing an uncanny ability to tease out major and minor differences and particularities in emphasis and approach to literary epiphany among these various writers and so clarify them for the reader. There is nothing perfunctory or monotonous in these chapters--Nichols has clearly given a great deal of careful thought to this subject, and it really comes across. If you believe that literature is more than just a Foucaldian power trip, that it is deeply meaningful and spiritually significant (possibly even religious, as with Hopkins and Eliot), then you'll without doubt find this book as interesting and edifying as I did. Highly recommended.

I learned of Susan Schultz almost one year ago. First, as the editor and publisher of TINFISH press,
and then, as an author, poet, and college professor, with the unique ability to not only manage, produce
and create in her chosen professions, but do so, proficiently with style, elegance and grace.

Her writing, especially her poetry and prose, are filled with grand imagery and metaphors, which allows the
reader to experience what Ms. Schultz is writing, creating.
She can begin with a specific theme, and easily have it curve and blend into other areas and passions,
and gradually bring one back to the point, the essence of what she is writing about.
Tying all the purposeful loose ends together,
making a lasting and uniquely satisfying journey, with words.

I recommend all of her books; she teaches as she writes and invites the reader to join in this process.
Whether she is reviewing a book, writing about the demise of Dementia, the unrest in our Country,
or about her personal experience with adoption, the adoption of her two children,
all are touching, and it is impossible not to be move and inspired. After reading one of her poems, you find yourself saying, "yes, how true..... I've felt that before."
Her writing is collaborative, a relationship between the reader, writer and the words.

A scholar, Professor of English, Editor, writer and publisher-- she is also passionate and active in worthy
causes, fairness, politics; most anything that is true and just and needs fixing.
Her words, her books and poems have changed my life and how I look at things.
How many people can you say that about?

She Rocks! Pure and simple. What an incredible and beautiful mind.

Sheri, Salt Lake City

For those wishing to understand how the choice to secede came about in a state where elitist planters did not dominate the political process (as in South Carolina) this is an excellent book. Thornton clearly shows that secession was a product of populist Jacksonian democracy in Alabama, providing an alternative to the view that only slaveholders supported disunion. Alabama's politics were marked from the beginning by class conflict between the yeomanry and planter class, and politicians learned early to exploit these tensions for political gain. Parties fought to outdo each other in labeling the other side as "elitist" aristocrats who would subvert the rights of freemen for their own selfish interests. This line of argument set the stage for the development of state's rights theory in Alabama, as promoters of internal improvements, banks, and social reform were often portrayed as elitist cabals. However, state's rights arguments were often little more than sophisticated versions of the election demagoguery that characterized debate over all the state's political issues.

Lack of policy-making expertise and the necessity of courting public approval often led the state's legislators to enact laws that hurt Alabama's long-term development. Forged in the Jacksonian era however, the electorate did not accept the Jeffersonian ideal of deferring to their betters in matters of policy, and regularly removed legislators who did not hew to the voters' instructions. Prior to the 1850s, most Alabama voters were not directly involved with the market economy, and were thus less likely to be affected by national economic and political policies, as well as less aware of the character of Northern opinion regarding slavery. Secessionist fire-eaters therefore enjoyed little support during the nullification and secession of 1850 crises, but their arguments gained respect during the 1850s as phenomenal economic growth drew more people into the market and its attendent insecurities, as well as making them more aware of the power of the federal government and the strength of the abolitionists.

Prosperous times and the marginalization of the Whig Party decreased the number of significant issues of disagreement among Alabama's politicians, leaving them in search of an issue to demagogue for political gain. The fight over Kanasas allowed them to portray northerners as elitists who would deny southern men of their rights and reduce them to the status of slaves. Such an argument gained creedence even among non-slaveholders because of the state's long populistic rhetorical tradition, which had convinced the yeomanry that elitist villains seeking to reduce their rights were always afoot, and could be defeated only by political supermen fighting for the rights and values of the electorate.

The southern rights argument clearly resonated among the yeomanry, particularly among those most affected by new economic uncertainties. In both the Presidential election of 1860 and the subsequent election of delegates to the state's secession convention, voters overwhelmingly chose candidates who supported secession or who would do so as long as Alabama would be joined in secession by other states. While Thornton's argument could be more thoroughly reinforced by exploring social factors that led the yeomanry to support secession, his argument for a hyper-democratic political tradition abetted by demagoguery and voter ignorance as a cause of Alabama's decision to quit the Union is quite persuasive.

"Portrait of America" was a popular video documentary series in the mid-eighties, a product of collaboration between Superstation/Turner Broadcasting Corporation and Ambrose Home Video. Well-researched, each video is divided into 5 segments covering most unique historical, social, and cultural aspects of each state. Watching such an interesting documentary, each being roughly about 50 minutes long, without advertisements and other interruptions seems to be a privilege in these days!

Written by P. Allsworth-Jones, a research fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield England, Pre-Columbian Jamaica is extensive attempt to collect aggregate evidence and research about prehistoric Jamaica into a single volume. Though Pre-Columbian Jamaica offers ample commentary on this evidence and can be read as a narrative, its true value lies in its accompanying CD-ROM brimming with illustrations, data, calculations, measurements, and comparisons - more information than can be published in printed form at a reasonable price. (The CD-ROM requires Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Access 2002 or higher, and 100 MB free space to use). In-depth information on the CD-ROM concerning two hundred and seventy-one prehistoric sites in Jamaica makes Pre-Columbian Jamaica an absolute "must-have" for serious students and scholars of early Jamaican archaeology, and highly recommended for college and graduate school libraries as well.

This volume addresses in the broadest context what it means to be literate and why being so is valuable. The core tenet of the monograph is that amid all the public discussion of computer literacy, cultural literacy, and functional literacy, there was (and, really, has never been) much public or academic discussion of literate literacy: that is, of literacy as the set of skills (what might best be termed deep reading and writing) needed to read and write complex, "literary" texts--or texts whose meaning is both inherently ambiguous in no small measure for relying on the sensuous dimension of metaphor. If G.H. Mead is correct that the self ultimately derives from an internal dialogue, then the real value of literacy would seem to lie in its ability to deepen this dialogue and hence our sense of ourselves. Drawing upon the work of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Basil Bernstein, among others, this work also initiates the author's ongoing critique on the role of the middle class in fostering deep reading and writing as part of its larger agendum of remaking the world to better accord to its own expansive dynamics. One corollary of this critique is to expose the contradictions at the core of revisionist, left-wing critiques of literacy in the work of Michael Cole and others.

If you are doing any type of research on the Indians of this time period this book is a must read!