South Carolina Books

I did like this book and I think it has very important information. This being said, I was upset to find that this book only lists last names that begin with 'A' through 'H'. Where are the names 'J' through 'Z'? Unfortunately all of my family names fall into this category!

North Carolina has well over fifty natural and recreational areas, and "North Carolina State Parks: A Niche Guide" is here to guide readers through its expansive wilderness to get the most out of their visits - there may even be something here for native North Carolinians that they haven't seen before. Covering every activity it can - hiking, camping, birding, boating, and more - "North Carolina State Parks: A Niche Guide" is a highly recommended guide with over one hundred full color pages, filled cover to cover with invaluable information. It's a pick for armchair travelers and real world travelers a like, and an essential addition to community library travel & nature collections.

I love this book. I know how hard and time consuming it must have been to put the book together. I live in North Carolina and it was great to see pictures of what it looked like years ago next to pictures of what it looks like now.

I started reading this and knew I had to keep it for myself, so I could know all those tidbits about North Carolina. Enjoyable!!

Peter J. Robinson has written an excellent book on the diverse
and often extreme weather and climate of my beautiful state of
North Carolina.
Complete with maps,photos,and tables,the author does a fine
job in his coverage of our weather.
Robinson is careful not to omit some worthy regard to the
greatest of Tar Heel storms,including hurricanes Hazel,Fran,
and Floyd.The devastating tornadoes of 1984 and the white Christmas of 1989 are also given justice.
Most of the book is provided in a generalized form of writing,
yet it is done in a very interesting and professional manner.And
what could not be interesting about our weather? With temperatures that have ranged anywhere from -34 to as high as
110 degrees.We have suffered through several major hurricanes,
extreme heat waves and drought,as well as devastating floods.And
we lay claim to one of the widest tornadoes in history-2.5 miles!
Greg Fishel delivers a most intriguing foreward to this book.
This book is a great educational tool for anyone interested in our state`s weather and climate.Also,it serves as a nice keepsake for any weather enthusiasts who are native to our great state.

Having just moved to the Mountains of North Carolina and an amatuer nature photobrapher, I needed to know where to go for hikes that had great displays of wildflowers. This book appears to be excellant. It isn't spring yet so only time will tell, but I am very hopeful.

All true Carolina fans should buy this book and read over the games that players such as Sean May, Raymond Felton, and Rashad McCants won to get us to the top of the college basketball world! This book discusses every single game of the 05-06 season in very good detail! It also has player profiles of the players that played at Carolina during that season including Sean May, Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, and Jawad Williams!

Any Carolina fan should buy this book to read and for great memories of our 5th Championship season at UNC! I hope my review was helpful to you!

Author David Surdam has finally done what others should have done years ago: he has connected the dots between the detailed studies of blockade running, weapons production, materials production, rail transport, and naval strategy to produce a definitive analysis of the blockade's effectiveness. The result might surprise many accustomed to hearing of the porosity of the blockade, but it makes great sense when one analyzes the impact on each specific area, and the transport network in general.

Surdam makes an extensive, compelling, and convincing case that the naval blockade of both sea and rivers was in fact effective in its strategic aim of strangling the Southern war effort. He does this not by looking at a single aspect, but many, and how they interacted to produce other impacts. Too many past analyses have taken only a superficial view of blockade running statistics, ignoring prewar volumes, the coastal trade, and the impact on rail transfers--as well as iron availability, hyperinflation, etc. How effective was the blockade? Consider this, cotton exports both through blockade running and through Union controlled ports totaled less than 2 million bales throughout the war, versus about 17 million bales that would have shipped in peacetime. Prices increased in London and New York several fold, but not in the Southern ports. The blockade not only cut volume to a trickle, but the price increase was not passed on to the growers or to the Confederate government.

Surdam does not dispute the relative weakness of the initial blockade. The U.S. Navy lacked the ships to enforce a proper blockade early on. Blockade running was easy in the early days, but the CSA was unable to capitalize on this. Part of the blame goes to the disastrous King Cotton diplomacy. Ironically, the self-imposed, unofficial cotton embargo assisted the Union during the weakest time of the blockade. The window of opportunity to import rails, equipment, and weapons while exporting cotton closed before the South fully appreciated its predicament.

It is the second half of the war that the full impact of the blockade can be measured. Surdam covers each in detail: the rails were overloaded and deteriorating, iron was in short supply, inflation ran amok making folks unwilling to trade food and goods for govt. notes, inter department transfer of beef was broken, and the coastal trade was gone. In effect the transportation infrastructure was collapsing from the extra strain, the markets could not transfer goods internally, external supply for the war effort was insufficient, and the lack of trade was devaluing the Confederate currency so rapidly as to destroy the basis for internal markets. One by one the blockade running ports were taken out of service.

Finally, Surdam reviews the purported porosity of the blockade and exposes several myths about that. The early ineffectiveness of the blockade still managed to destroy coastal trade within a year. In fact, many of the claimed successful blockade runs were actually coastal packets in the first months of the war (800 of 1,400 in 1861.) The absence of this trade later is one of the markers for the blockade's relative effectiveness. Overall annual attempts fell over three fold for the remainder of the war.

Another factor to consider is that wartime cotton prices in Europe were three to four times those in the southern ports--a very direct measurement of the effectiveness of the blockade and another indication of losses of southern revenue. It shows that the cost of running the blockade was three to four times greater than the cotton itself.

Sailing vessels were essentially removed as a source of trade, because the loss rate was suicidally high. Specialized light, fast, shallow draft steamers were the workhorses of blockade running. A truly successful run requires both entry and exit while a successful intercept can apply to either leg. In other words, the typical statement of success in running the blockade is overstated by a factor of nearly two. The direct financial burden that the blockade imposed on the govt. is apparent in a June 1864 statement by Collie Company showing expenses of shipping at over twice the value of the goods.

In conclusion the author reviews the Northern resources expended on the blockade to determine if they were justified. Not surprisingly, he concludes that the impact on the overall Southern war effort more than covered the cost of the blockade. The cost in naval expenditure was $567 million, 1/12th that of the Union war effort. The shortfall in Southern cotton revenue alone equaled or exceeded this. The financial havoc caused within the Confederacy was even greater. The impact on the transportation network, transfer of foodstuffs, import of raw materials, military supplies, and production of the same was also critical.

Understandably, some might be reluctant to accept the author's conclusions or might disagree with his analysis. However, I recommend this book even to skeptics of his thesis because there is sufficient information presented for one to draw his/her own conclusions as to the accuracy of each point.

Patrick O'Kelley seems to have covered every Revolutionary War Battle and Skirmish for 1782 for N.C. & S.C. in this book. He has done the same for 1771-1779, 1780 & 1781 in his other books. These are a must have for the Revolutionary War enthusiast or researcher.

Patrick O'Kelley seems to have covered every Revolutionary War Battle and Skirmish during 1780 for N.C. & S.C. in this book. He has done the same for 1781 & 1782. These are a must have for the Revolutionary War enthusiast or researcher.