South Carolina Books

I wrote a review here when this book first came out, and somehow it's gone by the wayside, so here's part II which is more or less a faint memory of the first.

Southerners often provide excellent characters for stories. Perhaps it's all the sweet potatoes, fried chicken, and mushroom-soup based casseroles that are consumed south of the Mason-Dixon that creates these masterful personality quirks that George captures so well. Every character he creates, I can not only envision, but tell you who they're related to, where they go to church, and what their drink of choice is.

George, much like a character out of a Tom Waits song himself, writes from experiences and observations. He places the reader right in the heart of his narrators and creates a world around that's real enough to smell.

He's just brilliant. The book...also brilliant.

George Singleton is one of those writers who appears regularly in the best of quarterlies and reviews: Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Glimmer Train, Southern Review, even a couple stories in Playboy. This deserved collection has been a long time coming.

And this is no lie: this boy can write. His stories penetrate the South, depicting narrators in all manner of fixes (taping over a wife's sonogram, caulking a house to within an inch of its life, reporting on a fake tornado, helping blind men shoot pool) in a prose that is as elegant as the Peabody, as savory as barbecue. He nails the Southern experience (call it, perhaps, Good Ol Boy lit), creating empathetic characters and the funniest situations this side the Mississippi.

There are classics here ("Crawl Space," "Outlaw Head and Tail," and the title story jump immediately to mind), stories that deserve to be read for generations to come.

Treat yourself: try this book.

No one writes like George Singleton. Every short story in this grand collection -- as good as, if not better than, J.D. Salinger's NINE STORIES -- is a classic gem. Told with tongue-in-cheek, "These People Are Us" views the world in Singleton's own inimitable vision, sliding through the cracks of life with a grand sweep. In stories that have been published in Playboy, Georgia Literary Review and other literary quarterlies, this collection sings as no other song can be sung. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if Singleton doesn't win the biggest awards in the land with this, his first book.

With that we begin a trip, a trip down the backroads of the south. A trip that includes dogs benesth the porch, recycled beer cans, and midget plumbers! Everything that makes the South great!
George has replaced Raymond Carver as my favorite short story writer.

Hilton Head and Bluffton, South Carolina readers will love this book! It's a fascinating easy read, incredibly informative, and a great gift to that reader who has absolutely everything but not this book! Buy it.

I used this book for two summers when I lived on Hilton Head. My job was to drive people around on small boats and teach them about the natural wonders of barrier islands. Since I was a boat captain, not a naturalist, this book saved my bacon many times over. Anytime anyone asked me a question, I'd just grab the book and look it up, and I'd usually give it to them so they could look at the pictures. I recommend this book for anyone living near the coast in the Southeast. In fact, a lot of it is still relevant to folks in the Northeast. Some of the species are different, but the processes are still the same.

What's not clear from Amazon's description is that this book has a unique format. Each page was originally an article in the local paper, so you get one page of info per critter or process. The pages are works of art, hand-drawn and lettered in pen and ink. Any one of them would be worthy of framing. The language is clear and easy to understand, written for laymen but with enough info to satisfy naturalists. In fact, they're so beautiful and well-written that I'm here today to buy a copy for a professor of mine who teaches college classes on the geology and natural history of the East coast. There's nothing in this book he doesn't know or can't look up in a normal reference book. It's the artwork that really makes this book pop.

Don't hesitate to buy this--you won't be disappointed!

This book uses descriptive illustrations to add to the enjoyment of its useful information. Its particularly relevant to the Coastal Carolina region and contains interesting and helpful facts for the beachgoer. Its format serves the single page reader as well as those who enjoy larger portions. Highly Recommended

This book gives a wide variety of all the different spots on a barrier island. we use it in enrichment class and I enjoy the book very much.

I really enjoyed reading Johnson's book about the important yet often overlooked events in the Carolinas during the Civil War, specifically the following:

1. Fort Fisher - the largest sea fort in the war that protected the vital town of Wilmington NC and the blockade runners so important for supplying Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
2. Charleston - where the whole shootin' match started.
3. Bentonville - the last large scale battle of the war.
4. Outer Banks - early Union victories here were vital to capturing many parts of Eastern North Carolina from which the Union could launch several offensives.
5. Sherman's March - the destruction of certain towns in both Carolinas (particularly South Carolina) further weakened the South's will to continue the struggle.

I also enjoyed reading about the locations of various gravesites of Confederate generals and their Civil War service.

Indeed, if not for this book, this native North Carolinian and long-time Civil War buff may never have learned of and visited the sites of some of the lesser-known sites other than those mentioned above.

Johnson's writing style is smooth without being overly simplistic and contains several anecdotes (some humorous ones too)of the interesting events which took place during the Civil War years.

Highly recommended!

Touring The Carolinas' Civil War Sites is an ideal and essential travel guide for Civil War buffs wishing to visit the numerous North Carolina and South Carolina Civil War memorial sites and battlefields. A life-long Civil War buff, Clint Johnson draws upon his considerable expertise to presents the meticulous results of exhaustive research in an articulate, "reader friendly" text that is augmented throughout with area photography. Touring The Carolinas' Civil War Sites is a highly recommended addition to personal and regional Civil War studies and reference book collections.

Simply put the book is well organized, well written and I have just about worn out my copy on my trips through the carolinas.

This book is invaluable to the Civil War enthusiast when touring the battlefields and sites of the Carolina's. The tours are filled with surprises that are off the beaten path and the directions are life savers. Without this book I'd have missed some priceless sidetrips. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone taking a Civil War tour of the Carolinas and look forward to more such books from Clint Johnson in the future.

Since I recently moved to North Carolina, spending my free time towards the mountains became a must. Carolyn has saved me countless hours of researching where to go and what to do. I am glad to find such an informative book.

This will lead you to interesting places that are mostly not well known. The views are stunning. A hiker on the Appalachian Trail said the view from Wayah Bald is the best on the trail. The only problem we had is that road numbers have been changed to names, but most of the numbers were still in fine print on the signs.

This guidebook, unlike most, is so encyclopedic in scope that I give it as a gift to newcomers to the area. It is also an invaluable reference for the visitor who wants to see more than the fabulous Biltmore Estate. Even though I am a native of the area, I learned nearly everything I know about Western North Carolina from this book alone and it is my primary reference. I am still amazed at how much fact, history and folklore [just enough to bring alive the curve of the road, the odd landmark, the abandoned building] is packed in its 300 pages. The author, who must have collapsed from exhaustion when she finished it, takes you on a detailed tour, laid out by the tenth of the mile, of carefully drawn sections of backroads that you can follow leisurely without getting lost. The author is completely absent from the text. The lucid style will please readers who want the facts, not editorial comment. This book, as well as the others in this publisher's backroads series, makes an excellent gift for anyone, especially the many seniors who have relocated, or are considering relocating to this fascinating region. It is also a valuable reference for natives, like me, who didn't know how much they didn't know.

I was introduced to this book by a friend and ended up buying the whole series! If you want to know more about western NC and spend your days enjoying a well written dialog that accurately directs you to place the other guides don't even mention, Buy this book. If you want a restaurant guide look elsewhere. I can wholeheartedly recommend the entire series from this publisher. Similar to the "off the beaten path" series only better, written by life long residents that obviously love their home state!

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Scruggs' book. It is written in such a manner that it draws the reader into the family circle while providing an amazing amount of detail into the history of the Legion and the personal recollections of Jud, the author's great grandfather.

I enjoyed reading Grandpa Scruggs' account of his experiences in Company K, Holcombe Legion of South Carolinians fighting for their state's freedom from the tyranny of the Union. The format of night time stories told by Grandpa Scruggs to his grandchildren kept a dramatic tension in the book that helped keep me reading. We learn about the courage and commitment of Judd and other soldiers to their cause. We learn of the hardships, boredom,and horror of life as a foot soldier. The ways captured soldiers were treated changed as the war progressed. Judd experienced both ways. Because of the personal focus of this book, we also learn how the war caught up extended families and effected them. We also get glimpses of life back at home while the men were at war. I highly recommend Eugene Scruggs' book.

Eugene Scruggs has made a valuable contribution to the history of the War Between the States with his account of the exploits of his great grandfather, Judson Puryear Scruggs, as an enlisted man in the Holcombe Legion, South Carolina Volunteers. To be sure, Scrugg's book is another in the "Johnny Reb and Billy Yank" tradition of oral history accounts from the point of view of the ordinary foot soldier. However, it is given context by a body of historical research, and a truly insightful introduction to some of this conflict's enduring themes. For many readers, the most interesting parts of the narrative will be those about life under horrible conditions in the POW camp at Elmira, NY, Judson's resourceful escape therefrom, and his traverse through enemy territory to Virginia.
In my opinion, however, as an avid student of the conflict rather than a professional historian, Scrugg's finest achievement was in his reconstruction of Judson's narrative within a quasi-fictional framework, in which he recreates not only the voice of his great-grandfather, but also that of the grandchildren who are auditors of the story. This teachnique not only creates a sense of immediacy in the flow of the narrative, but instills a kind of novelistic suspense which makes it enjoyable for the reader. This approach also permits Scruggs to render narrative as a truly "oral history," in that he has recreated the language of the period --- the regional dialect of 19th century Southerner. His handling of the artistic problem of the use of "eye dialect," moreover, is deftly handled: instead of generating pages of mangled orthography, Scruggs includes only occasional phonetic spellings, opting instead for the dialectal phrase, the idiom, and the speech rhythmns of his people. Professional historians may take issue with Scrugg's decision to treat his material in this way; other readers may enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.

Roger Cole
January 29, 2007

With the help of his older relatives, Gene Scruggs has gathered together the oral history left by his great grandfather, Sergeant Judson Scruggs, who served in South Carolina's Holcombe Legion during most of the Civil War.

Almost nothing has been written about this effective fighting unit which was organized early in the war by Peter F. Stevens, a former superintendent of The Citadel. 'Shanks' Evans, whose brigade included the infantry regiment of the Holcombe Legion, regarded it as his best fighting unit. During Lee's 1862 campaign, the accomplished Stevens often led Evans' entire brigade on the many occasions when Evans was posted to the divisional level.

In his stories, Judson recalls training camps around Charleston, the battles of Malvern Hill, Rappahannock Station, Second Manassas, Lee's First Maryland Campaign, Kinston (NC), and Jackson (MS). In the summer of 1864, the Holcombe Legion was detailed to guard the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad and (luckily) was not with Evans' Brigade at the Battle of the Crater. However, Judson was captured while guarding the Stoney Creek (VA) station and bridge and sent to the infamous Elmyra (NY) Prison. Perhaps Judson's most interesting stories recount his tunnelling out of prison in October 1864 and his experiences of running, hiding, and working his way home by late May of 1865.

Gene Scruggs includes glimpses of the daily lives of his Spartanburg District ancestors as he fashions the war stories as if his great-grandfather was telling them to his grandchildren in nightly installations. This is a "good read" for anyone interested in this troubled time in American history.

Stein, owner of insignia-maker Ira Green Inc. and the author of "U.S. Army Heraldic Crests", has produced another excellent reference for the militaria collector.
After a brief but useful essay on the history and manufacture of Army patches, the author proceeds to the heart of the work; the depiction of over 1500 patches in full color, with accompanying notes giving a brief history and current location of the unit, the design and wear dates of the emblem, campaign credits and unit decorations. With abbreviations, glossary, bibliography, and an excellent index, Stein's work will serve as a standard reference for patch collectors. The only notable shortcoming is a lack of information on reproduction patches, a number of which are depicted without comment.

(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This book was a worthwhile addition to my library! It is absolutely fascinating!

I like both reading about the units and the look at plates showing the patches. It gives a very good overview.

As a novice collector, I found this book to be an excellent resource to fill in a lot of missing blanks regarding actual unit names, where they were located and when. I highly recommend this book.

This is an informative and interesting read that anyone looking at USC should pick up. Even current students will get a lot out of the sections on dining and nightlife, as well as student organizations and dormitories. The student perspective is better than anything else out there on the market.

As the mother of a prospective USC student, I appreciated the honest, approachable style of this book. It provided us with insights from the students that are not readily available with other printed material about the college. It is like chatting with a good friend who knows the ins and outs of university life here. Thanks for this outstanding publication!

Students hold a unique and important perspective on the qualities of the university they attend. By describing students' opinions about the University of South Carolina, this paperback provides a valuable supplement to the web sites and printed materials published by the university itself. "University of South Carolina: Off the Record" offers an informative look at USC through the eyes of those who enroll in the classes, take the exams, attend the campus functions, and eat in the local dining facilities. Instead of limiting this book her own opinions and experiences, the author includes plenty of quotes from a range of individuals, exposing the reader to variety of student views on issues such as athletics, parking, academics, and computing facilities. This book is highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn what students have to say about life at the University of South Carolina.

This book is a wonderful source of information for anyone considering going to the University of South Carolina. It has tons of information about everything you could possibly want to know about the university, from food to parking, teachers to social events, and the best part of it is that it all comes from the students so you know you're getting the real deal. Sure, you can look at the university website and find statistics about the school, but the only other way to find this sort of information is by talking to the students themselves, but College Prowler has made it a lot easier by compiling student opinions on various aspects of the university and packaging it all in this one book. It is definitely a useful resource for anyone seriously considering attending the University of South Carolina.

This is a fascinating book, not just for Civil War buffs or journalism junkies - but for any of us who get a daily news fix from the newspapers, TV or the Web. It reminds us that we should always bear in mind who's delivering the information.
In his book, The Words of War, Mr. Bracken takes a very novel approach to a discussion of the Civil War, contrasting the coverage of several wartime events by two newspapers from two disparate regions, The Charleston Mercury of South Carolina and the northeast's New York Times. The differences in the reporting are striking, with the tenor and the details differing greatly.
How interesting it is to read news reports from over a century ago against current events. The politics, the war, the economy and the specific issues might vary; now it's not the North and the South, as much as it is the red states and the blue states.
This book serves as a terrific reminder that we must continue to question the objectivity and validity of the information we get. I highly recommend it.

The old axiom, "History is written by the winners," is essentially rejected in Donagh Bracken's new book, The Words of War. Bracken compares the Civil War battle reportage of the New York Times and the Charleston Mercury, juxtaposing the articles back to back. The result is a clear demonstration that history, at least during the many battles of the Civil War, is simply written by those who happened to be there.

In his introduction to the book, Bracken writes, "When the Civil War started, American journalism was put to the test. It was the start of the modern age of journalism, and it was a rough start indeed." The formative years of American journalism saw newspapers operated almost exclusively as propaganda organs, owned by some political person or party and used primarily to persuade the public for one cause or another. But when the Civil War came along, the very purpose of newspapers changed.

The public wanted information that was current, demanding up-to-date reportage of events that took place hundreds and thousands of miles away. Newspaper editors switched the focus of their papers' content from propaganda to covering the facts of battle, the "who-what-when and where" of it all. While the papers in the North and South always had different takes as to the "why" element of battle reportage, they still had to meet the chief demand of their reading public: that they get the facts, preferably as soon as possible. The new telegraph technology allowed for current reportage, and for the first time in the history of warfare, correspondents provided stories in a timely fashion.

New York was the newspaper capital of the country when war broke out, boasting 17 dailies. Many were pro-South and only five of them supported President Abraham Lincoln. Bracken focuses on one of those five, the New York Times, and its considerably talented editor Henry J. Raymond. Long interested in politics and journalism, Raymond was a principal founder of the New York Times in 1851 and also helped create the Republican Party after he left the Whigs in 1856.

In contrast, Bracken presents the firebrand editor of the Charleston Mercury, Robert Barnwell Rhett. Under the wonderful pseudonym "Hermes," Rhett penned the editorials that would lead South Carolina to be the first state to secede on Dec. 20, 1860. "He was quick of mind, brash and self-confident," writes Bracken, "and of the latter, annoyingly so to some." Rhett had considerable editorial influence over the Charleston Mercury, which was owned by Rhett's family.

Bracken is described on the book jacket as "...a writer of long standing having written extensively for newspapers and magazines for thirty years on subjects ranging from world history to economics." His familiarity with the Civil War subject matter is obvious in The Words of War and his approach to writing the book is organized and efficient.

Each chapter presents a battle, beginning with an author's commentary that sets the context. Then Bracken prints verbatim and unaltered the articles from the Charleston Mercury and then the articles from the New York Times that covered the battle. Sometimes maps, drawings and paintings are reprinted. Bracken then concludes each chapter with a section called "What Historians Say," usually a few paragraphs that cut the facts about the battle down to the barest of bones.

The most interesting portions of the book are found in the sections where actual dispatches and communications between the armies were published in the papers. For example, Bracken presents the fascinating exchange between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner during the battle at Fort Donelson early in 1862, as printed in the New York Times. Buckner sent Grant a dispatch proposing that a group of commissioners be appointed to determine terms of surrender. Grant responds:

Sir: Yours, of this date, proposing an armistice and the appointment of Commissioners to settle the terms of capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional surrender and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. I am very respectfully, your obedient servant.

Thus we learn how the famous nickname, Unconditional Surrender Grant, was created. The exchanges and notes between opposing commanders add a great deal of interest to Bracken's book.

The Words of War will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Civil War buffs, journalists and history students will find a great deal of value in the book. The book is so well organized that the reader does not have to go through the entire book in one sitting; he can peruse this chapter or that chapter, go to whichever battles he finds most interesting, and not lose any of the overall context. The book reads easily and provides information and perspective that even the most diehard of Civil War buffs will find new and enlightening. Bracken's effort is a solid one.

Beginning with the firing on Fort Sumpter and concluding with the Appomattox surrender of General Lee to General Grant four years later, "The Words Of War" is a unique and seminal contribution to the American Civil War literature. What author and Civil War historian Donagh Bracken has done is to compile and organize in chronological sequence the reports by newspaper correspondents from both the North and the South with respect to how the journalists wrote about the war for their newspapers back home. Specifically, the reporters for 'The New York Times' like Franc Wilkie, L.L. Crounse and others who were embedded with the northern Armies of Grant, Sherman, McClellan, and other officers and admirals in the Eastern and Western Theatres; and the reporters for such southern newspapers like the 'Charleston Mercury' like Robert Barnwell Rhett Sr. & Jr. and George William Bagy (under the pen name of Hermes). The northern and southern newspaper accounts are placed in juxtaposition with each other making for an inherently fascinating, impressively informative, enthusiastically recommended contribution to personal, academic, and community library Civil War Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Fascinating perspective on the role journalism plays in guiding the minds and hearts of the public. The same events told from the perspective of the participants. Civil War scholars will want to add this to their collections!

For a short time I worked at a Florida lab helping to compile the USDA list of introduced arthropods. It was then I learned about a lot of obscure creature that had invaded the US in ballast, on plants, in clothing, and on wood, rock, sand, and just about any commodity or personal effect. The invasion has not stopped, but it is often not even known to be going on by the general public, except in some high profile invasions such as the Asian tiger mosquito!

John Leland, in his "Aliens in the Backyard: Plant and Animal Imports into America" presents us with many (but certainly not all) of these imported organisms, from starlings to Russian thistle and from dogs (first brought in by Native Americans) to anthrax. Some of these introductions changed history as they destroyed or interfered with crops, or were of medical importance. Smallpox, unknown in America, was used to kill Native Americans long before anyone heard of a virus by transferring contaminated blankets to the intended victims. Both diseases and destroyers of crops had their effects on armies and the outcomes of wars, as well as the physical and economic health of the hemisphere.

Despite a few irritating typos, I found the book to be basically accurate and I learned a few things as well, such as the fact that all species of human lice were already present in the New World when Columbus landed. Typhus may have been here as well.

This is one of those eye-opening books that should be read by everyone, especially if you are concerned with security. We don't need terrorists (although they can help things along) to cause major impacts on society. Nature and our own mobility can do it as efficiently or even better! We should also keep in mind that we, who evolved on the plains of Africa, are aliens to the New World as well! Indeed, John Leland drives this point home several times in this book!

We've all heard tales of the dreaded zebra mussel, rampant purple loosestrife, or prolific European starling, but if you think exotic species are the exception, even a quick browse of Leland's entertaining compendium of aliens will set you straight. You can't step into your backyard without treading on interlopers, like the favored Kentucky bluegrass.

From the hallucinogenic properties of hemp, morning glory, datura and more; to attempts to cultivate the silkworm; to rats, cockroaches and disease, Leland's essays offer an entertaining history of facts, rumors and squabbles on an exhaustive number of alien species. Whether purposely (often to rid the place of some other unwanted interloper) or accidentally introduced, aliens have long thrived in their new home and many have come to be considered natives.

A professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute, Leland ("Porcher's Creek: Lives Between the Tides") writes with wit and a certain wicked relish, and his research is dizzyingly thorough. But the sheer width and breadth of information is overwhelming. This is a book to keep, to dip into again and again a chapter or even a few pages at a time, so as to have some hope of retention.

With chapter titles like "Out of Africa," "Cowboys: And Their Alien Habits," "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time," and "Bioterror: Older than You Think," Leland makes an appreciative and entertaining case for the melting pot.

John Leland (Professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute) does a great job of pointing out which plants and animals are, and which plants and animals are not, native to America. He writes well with style, grace and wit, and he gives a lot of interesting information about how various animals and plants came to be incorporated into the America landscape and enterprise.

From apples to kudzu he details which aliens have been a boon and which have been a sorry bust. In the case of kudzu (Pueraria lobata, which I saw for the first time in a Louisiana swamp a week before hurricane Katrina hit), "It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time" (title of one of his chapters). That was before people realized that kudzu completely blankets "whatever it grows on in a smothering welter of leaves and vines" strangling trees and other vegetation to death. (p. 161)

Also not a good idea was the introduction of carp into America's waters. Leland opines that "Most fishermen and environmentalist regard its widespread introduction...as a disaster...," although there are some, including the Carp Angler Group, who have a different opinion. Similarly, people differ about whether it was a good idea to bring the starling (one of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works) to America since it is now considered "a dirty, noisy, gregarious, and aggressive" bird that has displaced native species. Perhaps the worst of the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" species is the gypsy moth, brought to America as a possible silk worm. Leland goes into some detail about "well-intentioned dreamers of silken fortunes" in the chapter, "A Sow's Ear from a Silk Purse."

But these deliberately introduced species are relatively benign in the public eye compared to those that have freeloaded their way into our land and have more or less taken over in ways that we cannot control. The German cockroach, the Norway or brown rat, and the tumbleweed (surprisingly not native to the land of the cowboy but from Russia (with love)--oh, you deluded Sons of the Pioneers!) are three that Leland zeroes in on. He also has a few words to say about the American cockroach (probably not American--also called the palmetto bug) and the Oriental cockroach. Here in southern California we have all three, the German, the American and the Oriental. The German is the ever so prolific one that lives indoors in apartment houses and restaurants the world over, while the larger American and Oriental tend to live outdoors. I sometimes find one of the latter in my house dried up and dead in a corner or in a drawer, having wandered in and found nothing to eat and no moisture.

An introduced species that is perhaps an even bigger pest here in the southland is the Argentine ant, which Leland unaccountably does not mention. I recommend he take a study on it. There's enough material there to write a book and then some. Once the Argentine ant (small and black with only an occasional tiny bite) sets up shop inside the walls or under an establishment such as an apartment building or a college dormitory, it is there to stay.

What Leland does so very well in this book, and what makes it superior to some other books I have read, is integrate the alien species into the historical and cultural experience of the American people. In his chapter, "Out of Africa," he details "How Slavery Transformed the American Landscape and Diet." I had to laugh when I read that watermelon is not native to America but comes from Africa, as do peanuts and Bermuda grass, sesame seed and of course the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) also known as the black-eyed pea. I had to laugh because I recalled Randy Newman's satirical song encouraging Africans to come to America in the early days of the republic for "the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake"!

Naturally, it is not in any way surprising that many of our foods come from other lands since most of the world's cuisines have found a home in American. Rice is not native, although the so-called "wild rice" is. Wheat comes from the Middle East as most people know, while potatoes are native to the Andes in South American.

In the chapter "Cowboys and Their Alien Habits" Leland recalls the familiar story of how the horse was once native to America but had gone extinct here before Columbian times, and then was accidentally reintroduced by the Spanish explorers after which it revolutionized the Plains Indians' way of life. (p. 92) Also alien are the cowboy's cattle, including the Texas longhorn; and if we go back far enough even the "Indians," the so-called native Americans are not native. Sad to say many of the true natives, like the giant sloth and the cave bear and the great mammoth went extinct coincidental with the arrival of the first humans from across the Bering Strait.

The only problem I have with this book and others like it, is that there is never enough. The way plants and animals have moved around the world and the way they have changed the lives of people is a continual source of fascination. Leland's fine book adds to the reader's pleasure while not sating it.

We bought Roger's Book for FL lighthouses and used it as the basis for a tour of all of FL's lighthouses and now we plan the same with this book. His pictures are so nice and his easy, friendly and informative writing style is enjoyable. We really enjoy the insight he adds to the history of each lighthouse. We are looking forward to our next trip with this book as our guide.

This book not only contains excellent information on lighthouses, it is beautifully presented with great sketches and pictures. The pictures alone are worth the price of the book. Roger Bansemer has done an outstanding job in putting together this book.

Bansemer's Book Of Carolina And Georgia Lighthouse showcases the great lighthouses that served the maritime trade for generations along the Carolina and Georgia coastlines. Roger Bansemer's informative text is superbly enhanced by his wonderful paintings. Most of these grand structures are no longer in service, having been rendered obsolete by advances in maritime and communications technologies. But their legacy lives on as proud relics of a maritime history that continues to hold a fascination for each new generation. Superbly produced and presented, Bansemer's Book Of Carolina And Georgia Lighthouse is a very highly recommended addition to any light house enthusiast's collection.