North Carolina Books

I've ridden several rides following the book, and I found the milage accurate, the rides interesting, and the cue sheets very easy to use. The maps are separate from the cue sheets in the book, but flipping back and forth was not a problem. I personally found the cue sheets adaquate without the maps, but the maps provide a useful overview. If you're familliar with Jim Parham's other books, his mapping technique, while always good, has gotten better. These maps are really clear. However, on some of the rides, some intersections were too complicated for me to figure out from the map alone. The cue sheets were perfectly clear in these instances. Overall, this book is a model of ride information.

This is a very good book on riots. It does not include the riots from "Gangs of New York." If you are going to read this book, read Chapter 10 first. It will give you all the definations of the words the author uses like, magistrate, marshals, watchmen. This will help in knowing what these people are supposed to do in the book. I didn't do this and was wondering throughout the book exactly what these people were supposed to be doing to stop the riots. All the riots get a bit tedious after awhile, but there are some good parts. After you read the book you will sort of have the idea that is all the people in NYC did was riot.

This book was wonderful for my 8th grader - it's filled with tips, strategies, and practice questions. It's a must for any North Carolina 8th grader, and will help any child who just wants to sharpen his or her math skills.

As a middle school teacher preparing for the End of Grade Test, I was thrilled with this book. It works on specific skills in small segments that can be used in small or large groups. Best $15.00 I have ever spent for class materials in 15 years.

There is an ethos about places, including their inhabitants, some more than others. Take a river, the great Roanoke, its swamps and forests and farmland, its towns like Williamston, and its families, some there for centuries, and you have an ethos worth exploring, enjoying, and learning from in never ending ways.

Lucia Peel Powe lived in Williamston for some three decades. In her novel, Roanoke Rock Muddle, she brings us life there in the 1920s and 1930s. She could see and hear that riverine world, her empathy embracing its nuances. Mrs. Powe drew her scenes sharply and colorfully, exhibiting their complexities.

This literature will live along with the Roanoke. The characters are believable and finely developed in both what we can know and what we and their fellow characters can only suppose - real life.

One character in particular, an African-American servant, could "only happen in the South" as we sometimes say. Some may think her an undue flight of literary imagination. Not so! She lived in another Southern state. The characters in the story reacted with surprise, but like many Southerners, continued as before in love and respect - adding her to their treasure of family lore.

There are surprises in Williamston. Often they appear in someone's individuality and in social relations. Events, too, overtake some of the inhabitants, perhaps avoidable but not necessarily fixable. The story ends - as it should - in a reminder of our universality as a blend of good and ill and a lot in between.

Lucia Powe has another compliment for the Roanoke. She dedicated part of the book's earnings to the preservation of its swamps and forests.

Cooks and diners can also savor some favorite recipes from Ben-Olive who pleasured many a Williamstonian and visitor.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a mystery. Well-written and meticulously researched, this book leads the reader through an ever-expanding maze of political intrigue, personal grudges, and misbehaviour in the London of Queen Elizabeth during the sixteenth century. If you're wary of delving into a history lesson, you have nothing to worry about; the author does a wonderful job of telling you everything you need to know without being dry or boring. Instead of footnotes dividing your attention away from the text, Miller incorporates the actual words of the players into the narrative, bringing the characters from this period in history to life. This book is a page-turner from page one.

Robert Cole's World is a great book. Covering the history of Robert Cole and his family from England to their immigration to Lord Baltimore's Colony of Maryland, the book is a must for anyone interested in early American history. Background on the Cole family, 17th century tobacco cultivation, and daily life in 17th century Maryland are all incorporated into this interesting and nicely written book. Included are copies of the Cole family's inventory, as well as Robert Cole's will. For anyone interested in colonial American history and what life was like before American slavery took hold, Robert Cole's world is for you.

If you type in Robert Gwathmey on Google ,you will find the first chapter of Kammen's book.You will also find a review by Robert Beardsley of Harvard.Gwathmey led an exemplary life dedicated to social justice.He was one of the few whites to paint blacks. Kathleen Blackshear had painted blacks in the 30's & 40's also,but thereafter painted in abstract styles. Gwathmey was dedicated to his subject and was lauded for it.Rosalie contributed to Bob's career in many ways: 1. she got money from her parents so that they could get married and Bob could concentrate on fine art. 2. she joined Gwathmey in his interest in racial and economic justice, her photos of the the depression era were recognized.3. she worked as a textile designer to help support the family (some of these patterns can be seen on costumes of some of the street scenes he did)Kammen talks mostly about Gwathmey's life and loves.The work is well illustrated but, is not analyzed and evaluated in any depth.But, then there are more readers for the era that Gwathmey is noted for rather than the group of painters he was allied with.I admire social realism,socially conscious work for the artist's conviction . His steadfast adherence to a debunct area of figurative art.He avoided the fashions so prevelant in New York City.He stuck to his guns.His alliances with Jacob Lawrence and Philip Evergood are worthy of further study. He kept on painting into old age and died of Parkinson's disease. Rosalie was to contact Lymes disease in the 80's and would survive Bob by a few years.For artists you will learn the advantage of a partner who shares your politics and interests. The importance allies in art in following a direction that is not paramount in the art world.

La Rosa Corzo, Gabino (translated by Mary Todd) [1988] 2003 Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and Repression University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill

This is an excellent book, but not unflawed. One can be a little put off by the author's acerbic criticism of previous authors' use of oral histories especially since he uses such in his own book. However one must also recognize the need of the author given his location and circumstance to occasionally mouth the official Castro "socialist" line, and take the approved side in the African-Indigenous Cuban Siboney conflict. Such a stance is necessary to allow him access to Cuban government archives, and keep his job. Below I discuss some other minor quibbles of mine.

Mary Todd's translations are at times a little in accurate, e.g. apparently translating "guano" frond palm roofing as fan-palm thatch. However, as in the case of the author Dr. Todd has done an excellent job and as such should be congratulated.

Overall this is a very valuable book, and it has taught me much. I did not know about Cuban history.

All this aside

Figure 15, pp. 94-95 in paper back edition, show a detailed map of Don Benjamin's holdings between the Bayamo and the Guisa Rivers. This figure illustrates the 1848 "escaped slave hunting" raids of Eduardo Busquet and Antonio Lora.

One can note, all though I did not see it in this book, that in the Cuban güajiro vernacular palenque can also be the enclosure, the arena or cockpit, inside the valla the cockfighting hut, where the gamecocks fight (Lionel Daley, personal communication 2005). This of course relates to the karst rock "cockpit" country in Jamaica where the Maroons, or groups of escaped slaves of Jamaica held corresponding sway. Maroon of course is derived from the Spanish Cimarrón.

I can interpret this map to show a "palenque'' (escaped slave settlements that were to fortified variable extent and are considered African in Origin) indicated as open square on the map and placed in a postion corresponding to the height of a cliff of the west side of the Guamá River (the one that flows south the join the Bayamo River) perhaps a few hundred yards from Paso Caimanes; another coming up what is now El Banqueo del Oro as closed triangle supposedly at the height of the Bayamesa. However, since this first site is too close to the house of Don Benjamin, it is very possible that the site of the first camp was a few miles further south, up the Arroyón Valley which has a hidden stream (Tío Mingo Stream). Even so the relatively close location of either of these sites implies a relationship between these Cimarrón and Don Benjamín Ramírez.

The third camp (closed triangle) is at the origins of the Guamá del Sur Torrent, however this map does not show that the Guamá River also rises further south than the Guamá del Sur Torrent. This location is approximately the place where Great grandfather Mambí Colonel Don Benjamín Ramírez (Rondón) prefect of the zone in the Ten Year War held camp. And if this is so this is place where Great Grandmother Leonela Enamorado Cabrera met about 1873 Mayor General Calixto Ramón García-Iñiguez and conceived grandfather Mambí (War of 1895) Brigadier General to be Calixto (García-Iñiguez) Enamorado [...]. It may also, with less certainty, be the place where Carlos Manuel de Cespedés was deposed as President of the Cuban Independence Movement.

Notice with great care the rivers at the head of the Bayamo, El Oro, La Plata y los Diablos. The Bayamito and Guamá Torrents to the South, once marked the south western and so eastern boundaries of Don Benjamín's land. Notice this map also shows Arroyón, the largest tributary of the lower Guamá, not the Tio Mingo Stream) and the Chorrerón or Salto de Guamá (unlabelled) and the Los Horneros (also unlabeled) where Francisco Maceo Osorio died of fever soon after the Céspedes trial.

This could be taken to indicate that the Cimarróns or escaped slaves had strong connections to the Siboney of the area, and fits the known fact that many members of both ethnicities participated in the Wars of Independence against Spain. The author on the other hand while he does mention some links and allows inference of other, perhaps because of ideological reasons does not tie the Cimarrón as close to the Siboney (Taíno, Island Arawak) as is indicated by Jose Barreiro's photographs of modern Taíno might justify.,

The book also mentions the tradition of dispersion of rural housing in the area, some tactics and the use of what are now known as "punji": sticks in guerrilla defense.

Excellent coverage of the slave era by Mr. Parker. This genealogical guide was resourceful in educating the reader of the plight of the runaway slave. Inclusive of tables, statistics, and charts, it allows one to get an up-close and personal coverage of the runaway slaves in North Carolina. All information contains footnotes to documents resources used. A MUST READ BOOK!!!