Louisiana Books

The book brings together all the various information on Margerita into one handy place and adds a bit of new information and some theories on how the events of the Guillory's lives transpired. Especially interesting is the author's theory on the Indian slave Jean Guillory.

Rarely does a comprehesive book cover the known work of an artist and open and close the issue. Persac is little known outside of Louisiana. He is a major early artist who documents Louisiana life in the late pre Civil War era. Kudos to the authors, sepecially Prof. Bacot. Thank you for this book.

This is the best biography of Chesnut to date. Muhlenfeld draws from all of Chesnut's writing, not just her famous Civil War diaries, to build a picture of a woman and a writer.

Get a front row seat at Mardi Gras with Kerri McCaffety's MASKING AND MADNESS. This vivid collection of photographs is centered around portraits taken during Mardi Gras 2001, peppered with mixed shots from other years visits. The beauty of Mardi Gras is that it is all about showing off and being seen, a perfect natural subject for photography.

The calm muted portrait background of McCaffety's photo booth provides a blessed quiet space where all manner of characters can shine in all their secret-persona-glory-revealed! Makeup, masks, sequins, glitter, tulle, stripes, spots, spangles, and beads, beads, and more beads! From whimsical to "what the heck?", McCaffety catches it for the just needed moment of capture so it can be shared here.

If you'd rather skip the crowds, pull up a chair and relax with the masking and the madness in this book.

The piece illustrating the cover is the highlight of this incredible collection. It is known as the Lilies of the Valley Basket. The moss is pure spun gold, the basket gold, the flowers are pearls with highlights of diamonds. The entire basket is made up of yellow and green golds, silver, nephrite, pearls, and rose cut diamonds. All the pieces in this collection are gorgeous-- absolutely amazing. This work was a favorite of Czarina Alexandra and was created in 1896.

This 57-piece collection includes three Imperial eggs. The Imperial Caucasus Egg was a gift from Czar Alexander in 1893. The portraits on this egg are covered by magnificant and ornate doors that open up to reveal miniature portraits of the Grand Duke and Abastuman, the Royal Lodge. It was created with yellow and quatre-colored gold, silver, platinum, guilloche enamel, diamonds, pearl, crystal, and ivory. Stunning.

Also included here are the Imperial Danish Palaces Egg which was given to the Czarina by Czar Alexander III. This one is light pink enamel but includes a fold out panel which holds 10 pictures of the royal residences in Denmark and Russia.

The last egg is the Imperial Napoleonic Egg and marked the 100th anniversary of the Russian defeat of Napoleon. Larger than the other eggs, there is a six panel fold out revealing the six regiments and the Dowager Empress as their honorary colonel. The materials used here were gold, enamel, diamonds, platinum, ivory, gouache, velvet, and silk. Exquisite.

There are also several pairs of opera glasses (rose and green gold, tri-color gold, anamel, silver, diamonds), perfume bottles, cigarette cases, trinkets, an inkwell (bowerite, silver, enamel, and glass) and small items of jewelry, such as rings.

The floral works, however, are the most highly admired pieces by historians and there are 18 other floral works in this collection besides the Lilies of the Valley basket. The flowers and leaves are made of carved semi-precious stones and adorned with diamonds and other gems, as well as gold. They are lavish and ornate. The Orange Blossom Spray, for instance, has leaves and petals made of quartzite, olivine, nephrite, rock crystal, with gold stems.

I was fortunate to view this magnificent collection this week and was duly impressed. This 160 page book (catalog, really) is full of beautiful color photos and descriptions of each masterpiece. It also explains the origin of this collection while giving more information about Matilda Geddings Gray.

Matilda Geddings Gray began collecting these works in the 1930s. At different times she was offered an immense amount of money to return these items to Russia. She always declined and the foundation she created has also declined to sell them. They are permanently housed in the New Orleans Museum of Art, but are presently out on loan to a nearby museum.

My intro to Dr Kenneth W. Thompson came in 1990 as a first-year student at the Univ. of Virginia. A product of a fabled period in the Univ. of Chicago's history, a central tenet in his instruction was enunciated by his mentor, Hans Morgenthau: that a nation's foreign policy is best understood through the prism of national interest. This view of IR struck me as revelatory, much as did Clauswitz' view that war must serve as an extension of a nation-state's policy aims. "Master's of Int'l Thought" is an excellent survey of modern era thinkers (believe 3 or less are still with us today!) and written in Thompson's always thoughtful and exceedingly respectful style. I cherish my time previously spent in his classroom, and am thankful for the substantial work provided to us by this great American.

William Kauffman Scarborough of the University of Southern Mississippi is a scholar of consumate skill. His research into the heart of the Southern Plantation Society provides the history student with a keen insight into what made the masters of Dixie tick. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Scarborough is able to paint the best picture to date of the power and influence the leaders of the Old South wielded over their region. Scarborough delves fearlessly into their lust for wealth, their roles in the secession crises, their relations with their slaves and one another, and their reaction to the South's defeat in the Civil War. The psychology of the South's cotton culture is explored in great detail as Scarborough peels back the layers of the onion and clears the fog that literature (Gone With the Wind, Absalom Absalom) has surounded the great planters with, giving the reader a truly human look at the Antebellum South's Premiere men. An excellent book for anyone interested in Southern History.

Grace King's memoir of life in New Orleans from the Civil War to the Depression traces the crises and changes in Crescent City society, so it's more than just another autobiography by a Southern belle. King became an independent woman and breadwinner, breaking with Southern tradition to pursue an intellectual career and defending the South: hers is an absorbing, winning memoir perfect for collections strong in either autobiography, women's writings or Southern history.

THE MEMORY OF GILLS has been a long time coming. Not as long of course as the eons it's been since we had gills. Lucky for us it is finally here, because it is a gem among all the others beckoning from the shelves for our attention. So here's my suggestion, snap it up, run home and dive in.

Read it in the attic in the old rocker, out on the porch on the swing or by the sea with the waves nipping at your toes. With the zest of one who's moved around a bit we get views from the depths of love, eye to eye with clover, peaking from under the covers, and from places that only exist in the magic of poetry.

You'll have to force yourself to put this book down, to savor it in smaller bits, rather then swallowing it whole and still feeling hungry. With sights and smells, sounds and sympathies you'll march along from poem to poem completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

THE MEMORY OF GILLS is an excellent example of the poetry of persistence. With this book in hand we are brought to a place where we can benefit from the years of work, the diligent reworking, and the brushing away of rejection notices to find a home with a publisher that decided Catherine Carter's poems had evolved to the point that they could breathe on their own.

Edward Turner was born about 1768, probably near Boston, a descendant of early settlers in the Plymouth Colony. In 1791, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Army, serving thereafter in New England as a paymaster and quartermaster, and being promoted to captain in 1794, with supply duties on the frontier. Two years later, he was in command of a company at Ft. Fayette (near Pittsburgh), accompanied by a new wife. In 1802, he found himself at Nashville, then Ft. Pickering, near the present site of Memphis. By the following year, he was at Ft. Adams, Mississippi Territory, where he was summoned by Gov. William C. C. Claiborne and told he was to be in charge of supplying the federal troops being moved to New Orleans following the Louisiana Purchase. Claiborne continued the colonial Louisiana practice of having local military commanders serve also as civil administrators, so when Turner was sent in April 1804 to establish an American military presence at the town of Natchitoches, he was to serve also as the local head of government. When he was replaced a year later, Turner resigned his commission and was immediately appointed Judge of Natchitoches County. He was later appointed the first postmaster as well, organized a local militia, and carried out a census, in addition to acquiring and expanding plantation holdings in the area. His promising career in the new state was cut short in 1811, however, by one of the periodic waves of malaria and he and his wife both were buried within forty-eight hours. This biographical research was developed by Richard M. Lytle in the process of writing a master's thesis, but the bulk of this volume consists of the unusually legible military records he uncovered at the National Archives and which were transcribed by Womack, a well-known Louisiana genealogist with a deserved reputation for producing careful work. This includes muster rolls and payrolls of Turner's Company for the period 1802-1805. Some of the men listed were part of the unit at Nashville and at Ft. Adams, while others joined in New Orleans and in Natchitoches itself. Some of them also were discharged there and may well have descendants in northwest Louisiana.