North Carolina Books

I 'found' this book while browsing in the public library, waiting for my kids as they participated in the summer reading program. Living in NC, the subtitle, 'A Novel of Passion and Mystery in the Blue Ridge' caught my eye. This was a great book. Too bad it's not easy to find as you don't have to live in NC to appreciate and enjoy it. EVE'S MOUNTAIN is about a mountain owned by a wealthy businessman who has promised to keep the place as is, in memory of his wife who went missing there one summer many years before. Now the owner is there trying to recover from a stroke, bringing family members and others who all seem to be trying to escape from something. The mystery of Eve's Mountain eventually involves them all, for better or for worse. Once I got into who was who and what was what, this is one I couldn't put down.

I ordered this book because I know the author, and knew that it would be helpful for churches who are seeking to become open to persons regardless of their sexual orientation. To be frank I have not yet read the book, but knowing the author and his experience with the subject, I am sure it will be very useful.

When my colleagues and I planned the conference upon which this book was based, we wanted to make sure we would come to understand why Hurricane Floyd wreaked such devastation upon Eastern North Carolina in September of 1999 so we could better inform the public as to the causes and remedies. What we found was that many of the disastrous consequences could have been avoided. A series of freakish natural events, combined with thousands of political and individual property development decisions over a 50 year period, converted Eastern NC into a giant bathtub with many of its key drains clogged. Some have described the flooding that occured as "Biblical" in nature. And it can happen again unless community leaders show the courage to make the necessary modest and reasonable changes to their respective communities. This is a book from which scientists, politicians, agency personnel and the general public all can benefit. It is based on research in the physical, environmental, and social sciences as well as "on the ground" experiences. All net proceeds go to projects for improving our understanding of the impacts of hurricanes.

Cabarrus County in south central North Carolina was formed in 1792 from Mecklenburg County and is today situated between Mecklenburg and Rowan counties. Mrs. Marler's new work on Cabarrus County is the first effort we know of to systematically present information on all families in that county from its inception until the end of the War of 1812. The author extracted her findings from the 1790 Mecklenburg County census, the 1800 Cabarrus census, court records, Mecklenburg county deed records, marriage records, wills, and newspaper obituaries. She has arranged the families alphabetically according to the surname of the head of each household, incorporating all available data and its source in an outline format. Whenever possible, Mrs. Marler embellishes the limited content from these early censuses with information such as the name(s) of neighboring families, persons who bought/sold land to the principal householder, details of a marriage, and so forth. In all, the volume identifies 2,000 early families in Cabarrus County and perhaps five times as many persons overall. Can there be any doubt that Families of Cabarrus County, North Carolina must be reckoned as the new starting point for research in this early North Carolina county?

Are cooperatives for farmers like labor unions? Are they like corporate monopolies? Are they another sort of entity? These questions were directly relevant for the raisin growers of California in the early 1900's and for the federal government. Saker Woeste provides detailed analysis of legislation and federal court decisions about the thorny status of the cooperatives--a debate in which the involved parties were creating their own precedents.

Saker Woeste's book has a liveliness beyond what the legal topic might lead us to think. Mixed with these discussions of the law are colorful episodes that few of us outside California realized before. The book features violent night riders, tales of ethnic pressures and prejudices (especially regarding the Armenian- American community), eccentricity and idealism in the characters of the Cooperative's leaders, and the marketing story of how Sun-Maid got lots of Americans to gobble their raisins.

So the book features lots of law with lots of social history, marketing, even violence. And a wealth of pictures helps the reading. Especially interesting are the early Sun-Maid advertisements. Fans of the histories of California, of agriculture, or of American law would enjoy the book.

For Easterners, good comparison/contrasts are studies of Kentucky's Black Patch War--Night Riders among the tobacco farmers.

Excellent book with lots of good information. I highly recommend this book if you're heading to see the beauty of Western NC! And if you're not, why not?! It's beautiful!

This is a well-researched work that's easy to recommend. Doyle is an excellent historian who is well-versed in Faulkner.
The combination makes this fine book both an interesting history of Faulkner's native "postage stamp of soil" and an excellent introduction to Faulkner's world. It also provides a wonderful example of what a historian actually does (although not without some cautions along the way).

This book is incredibly well researched and nicely written. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the arts and/or arts policy in the United States. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

the 57th North Carolina seems to have been all over the war from late 1862 to the end. But I had thought at first this was going to be just another Civil War Journal or history book on a unit. But it turns out to be the best of both. It never jumps around in dates, and not only has the letters of JC Zimmerman but other family members too. You get to know all of them. It is also full of Official reports that support where and what the 57th NC did and where they were at. It even has direct quotes of offiers about the 57th NC and or the Brigade they were apart of that come right from there own post war writings. This is truly a must have for any Civil War buff.

I have read about this book for a long time. If you read early American history or constitutional history, you will come across many many a reference to this book. This work started out(I believe) as Dr. Adams' dissertation and was written in German. During the Bicentennial year, it won a prize for being the best recently written work on early American history written in a foreign language. The prize was a translation in English that was originally published in 1980. For this edition, Dr. Adams updated the very useful bibliography and added two additional chapters (essays that were written afterwards that somewhat speak to the book's main theme).
The main theme of the book is one that hadn't been explored enough when Dr. Adams first wrote: the influence of the early constitutions written, ratified and lived under in the original 13 colonies (and Vermont) on the United States Constitution of 1787.
The plan of the book is fairly simple. In the first three chapters, Dr. Adams gives us a preparatory historical background. He covers the organization of governmental structures as we go from revolutionary committees organizing the first and second Continental Congresses, the decision for independence and the subsequent call from the Congress to create new state governments. He covers quickly the history of the writing of those constitutions and the Articles of Confederation.
The body of the book is devoted to an examination of some of the main political ideas/themes of the period and how they were written in the various state constitutions. He covers popular sovereignity, liberty, equality, property, the common good, representation, seperation of powers, and federalism.
The new chapters are the weakest part of the book for me. The first new chapter somewhat redundantly and weakly summarizes his argument of the body of the book and the last chapter examines the republican/libery debate in the light of his research. Really the best part of the updating is the bibliography which is organized by state as well as by subject matter and thus easily guides the obsessed reader onto further research. I like it a lot.
There are many things in his discussion that I learned from and that make the book very much worth reading. I will mention only two.
One of the most jarring aspects of this period for any reader is the many of the most vocal advocates of liberty and equality were slave owners. Many many contemporary British and Tory commentators noted this contradiction. "All men are created equal" wrote a man who owned almost 150 slaves. George Mason (owner of 118 slaves) wrote in the Virginia Bill of Rights the following line:"..all men are by nature equally free and independent."
Adams claim is that the use of equality in this period was politically useful to the revolutionary leaders in the context of social contract theory. They wanted to establish their equality as British citizens and to deny their second-class citizen status as colonists. Thus the clauses on equality in some of our early national and state documents. Three other states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Vermont) also included declarations of the equality of man in their first state constitutions. Only one (Vermont) prohibited slavery. Adams basic claim is that what was revolutionarily useful later caused a variety of problems that national and state leaders tried to control (see the whole of chapter 9 for Adams' documentation of the above facts).
Which leads me to the last point of the good Dr. Adams that I want to emphasize. What is clear from my reading of this book and Rakove's The Beginning of National Politics is that in this period we were a people scampering for solutions and justifications. There was much experimenting and sometimes just plain fudging through to make things work (see Adams on how the Massachusetts constituion got ratified). We were being led by some very thoughtful and well-read men to be sure. But they were organizing a resistance to the most powerful military on Earth at that time, they fought a revolution on a shoestring and they were creating unprecedented forms of government. There wasn't a whole lot of room for theoretical consistency.
My only complaint against the book is an unfair one. If Dr. Adams' was writing the book now, he would probably have much more material to base his research on. The book leans heavily on the town records of Massachusetts because they were easily available in the Handlins collection. But like I said, this complaint may not be fair simply because comparable records from, say, South Carolina, simply weren't preserved.
Willi Paul Adams' book is a learned and useful guide to that period. If you really want to understand the original intentions of our founders, this is a necessary read.