Arkansas Books

Maps on a wide variety of subjects are included, from natural resources, elections results, Civil War tactical maps, settlement patterns, etc. Not flashy at all, no color maps, but useful nonetheless

Joseph T. Robinson had an interesting career, being elected to Congress in 1902, elected Governor of Arkansas in 1912, in 1913 elected by the Legislature to succeed Jeff Davis (who is the subject of a really outstanding biography: The Wild Ass of the Ozarks: Jeff Davis and the Wocial Basis of Southern Politics, by Raymond Arsenault), and served in the Senate till his sudden death on July 14, 1937, having been the vice-presidential candidate on Al Smith's ticket in 1928. While the early chapters of this book, telling of Robinson's early years and his rise in Arkansas politics are interesting, the account of his Senate years is pedestrian and uninterestingly written. The author has a superficial grasp of the times in which Robinson lived, and while the book is well-footnoted and has a good bibliography, the book is actually a published thesis and was a disappointment to me. I have read a lot of senatorial biographies and must rate this one of the poorer ones.

The book is a history book, about the Little Rock Nine. I only read the first 3 chapters (which I may add were full with facts for my research paper), but they were good. Factual. :)

Mad Monks on the Road (the first book by perennially-traveling self-published magazinists and soulmates Michael Land and Jim Crotty) is one of those books I just didn't know what to do with when I finished; unlike any other book I've read recently, it had a weird disposible quality (I was half-expecting recycling instructions on the back cover)...yet it's, well, neat to have around.

The story is by turns delightfully whimsical and maddeningly wispy. (Mike's hippie-ish and Jim's a Buddhist and both have an admirable sense of what's campy--and they run right at it.) The authors' habit of introducing each person they meet by zodiac sign made me cringe after a while, but perhaps that's just my personal bias. I've previously read The Mad Monks' Guide to California and Michael Lane's Pink Highways, and was really surprised by the sharp contrast in style (over so few years, no less). On the Road is a much less-tempered flight of fancy ("The Monks and How They Got That Way," kinda) which shares with Pink Highways only the nagging question of how much the reader can expect to be true (because it may well all COULD be, but it's hard to fathom living in the same world as these characters and not knowing it). Given the tone of the book, it isn't really surprising that even though their macrojourney is ostensibly from San Francisco to New York, they spend a large chunk of the book going from east to west.

I would almost say it's worth reading just to be able to discuss the ambiguous relationship between the authors--Michael Monk is gay and Jim Monk is probably everything else--but that's really the least satisfying element of the book. Then again, maybe I'm just envious: the Monks have such funky friends and unfathomable (mis)adventures, if you've got the travel bug this book will only feed it.

The book is hefty enough for a door stop, which you would like at a $75 retail price. Fortunately they can be found for about half that, but still, I thought pricey. So many great images of Georgia soldiers have been previously published, with so many more to brought public, that I had high expectations for a book chuck full of fabulous new images. What I found were quite a number that had been previously published, some many times. Despite the promise of a slant toward the common soldier, there were more than enough of the generals and famous. The quality of most images was quite good, while a small number were so blurry that I had to wonder if it were a fluke of printing, or they had actually been included that way. Don't get me wrong, there were some splendid images included, but many were rather mundane. It would have been nice to include the regiment with the name of the man in the image, which appears beside each, rather than having to dig it out in the text. Oddly missing were images of GMI cadets with their distinctive insignia, as well as at least two clear images showing Georgia state seal buckles, both oval and two-piece. They are out there. There was one picture of a Georgia soldier wearing a very clearly seen two-piece state seal belt buckle, but oddly enough, it was a South Carolina buckle. Possible, I guess, but it makes you question some of the identifications without some explanation for something so obvious. Not much new on camp or battlefield photographs as well. I wonder the criteria the authors used for picking those they did. If I can find any image of note, I consider it worthwhile, and I guess the book accomplished this by a whisker, but without paying about a fourth of the retail price, I walked away disappointed for what I received.

Portraits in conflict;louisiana in the civil war,is filled with black and white photographs,mainly of persons involved,in some way,in the fighting in that state..The photograph content is generous,but the explainatory text isn't...Indeed,many of the photographs included have little in the way of reference,and are there,seemingly,because nothing else was available...take,for example,the picture of Frederick Wilkerson,to be found on page 134...sure,his picture is there,taking up half the page,but the only data given regarding his role in the louisiana campaign,,is that''At midnight he was to lead the assault"on a position known as the citadel...what he thought or did,what the outcome was for him is not disclosed..many,if not most of the photographs used in this book are given similiarly vague reference..the photos do represent persons who participated in the figiting in louisiana,but that's about all...Surely if the two authors of this book took the trouble to hunt down and then publish 355 pages worth of old photographs of soldiers who fought these battles they could also have done thier homework regarding who these people were before,during,and after the war..Seeing thier photographs makes the reader curious about them,a condition that Moneyhon and Roberts do little about...
If you want mainly to look at identified photographs of obscure soldiers and low-ranking officers then this book is for you..And while in some instances the authors do present information that tells something about the soldier in question,in most cases they do not,opting instead for the simple"he was there"approach...

A fairly interesting but very limited in scope study of a minor campaign in the West in 1864.

Only the events surrounding Steele's retreat (several small battles) are covered in this text, without context. They are given close attention and clear analysis, with the exception that clearer maps/graphics would have been a plus. This campaign is interesting in that both sides accused the other of killing wounded men, mutilating the dead and other atrocities, accusations which the author reports but does not explore.

An excellent overview of the migration of several families from North Carolina to the area of the Arkansas River Valley around what is now Russellville, Arkansas. It was written, by the way, by a descendant of my Great Great Grandfather's younger brother. It is a story, based on historical facts, of a large extended family, how they lived, what they believed, the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. I found it very interesting.. but then, it's my family!

This book didn't really help me as much as I thought it would. I probably could have used it more, but since I didn't, oh well.

After a week using this book (and its Oklahoma sibling) we were very disappointed. The *content* of the book is, in general, very good, interesting and readable. The problem is with the layout. The author jumps about, geographically, so that you don't really know how close (or far) a place is. It's the same with the Oklahoma book. I will undoubtedly buy other books in this series when we are visiting other states, but next time I will spend some hours highlighting the place name on each page.

I do like tbhe concept of these books, and the information was useful, but the books are not "geographically intuitive"!
More maps, or just better layout, would improve these books a lot.

In Arkansas, we found several other guidebooks more usable and user-friendly, notably "Arkansas Roadsides" by Bill Earngey, "A Roadside History of Arkansas" by Paulson, and the "AAA TourBook for AR, KS, MO and OK". The best local information came from Arkansas State Parks in their brilliant series of leaflets!

As with any guide, some information may have changed since the last edition. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the path this guide led me on. I discoved an Arkansas I never imagined! Restaurants were on the money! Accomodation recommendations exceeded my expectations! I felt the content was honest, objective, adequately descriptive and thorough. My only real complaint was the Cave City Motor Lodge recommendation. The book should be updated in regards to it being barely open for business and the "restoration" is rather slow in coming. We looked at the few guides available for Arkansas and we still think this one is best.

I gave this book 2 out of five stars because it is informational. But the problem I found when looking at restaurants and places to stay that were in my area of the state I found many things were not right, such as spellings of names of restaurants. Also, she listed one place as only a restaurant and it is also a place to go for a weekend get away that is very neat. I only wonder about the rest of the information. It is fun to look at but I wouldn't use it as a guide when I travel to any of the places, lord knows I would probably be trying to get some place that did not exist as she had spelled it and look like a completely "dumb" tourist.