South Carolina Books

Melendez's research in this fascinating book highlights the dinamic nature of cultural identity construction of the colonial subject and explores the elements of race and gender as components of the author's own colonial agenda (15). The first chapter of the book provides an overview of the book's contents and a detailed look at Carrio de la Vandera's life. The second examines the author's view of the indigenous peoples' otherness, which Melendez argues, is exploited by a discourse that underlines the indians' sexual deviance and lack of language mastery. The third chapter focuses on the author's assessment of the "sistema de correos" between Buenos Aires and Peru and how that assessment is overshadowed by a critique (and subsequent reformatory proposal) of the indigenous people observed during the journey. The fourth chapter focuses on the social and cultural anxiety caused by the African slaves and how the author attempts to eliminate social uneasiness through linguistic maneuvers that underline their inferior nature. The final chapter is devoted to the narrators' view of colonial women as social disruptors (threats to colonial order). I found myself reading the entire book over a period of four days. I recommend it to any reader who is interested in literature of the Spanish-American Colonial period. Footnote: Mariselle Melendez was a professor of mine at Purdue University several years ago, and every publication of hers that I have read has been outstanding.

"The Realist Short Story Of The Powerful Glimpse: Chekhov To Carver" by Kerry McSweeny (Molson Professor of English at McGill University, Montreal, Canada) focuses the professor's analytical commentary on the published writings of five acknowledged masters of the short story format: Anton Chekov, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver. Professor McSweeny deftly argues the idea that realist short stories provide a tightly focused and dramatically powerful form that requires the author to a precisely crafted realism though distinctive literary strategies that transcend the writer's various generational, national, and cultural backgrounds. Professor McSweeney persuasively defends the effective short story has integrating three specific components: the entertainment value of the story; reader response to the story's emotional content; and the reader's reflective reaction to the conceptual or cognitive elements. Informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "The Realist Short Story Of The Powerful Glimpse" is a seminal work of superb scholarship, and a welcome contribution to the literary analysis of the short story format in general, and the application of short story principles to the works of five gifted masters of this distinctive literary form in particular.

The ubject of the slave trade has been written about before but this bookcovers the more interesting topic of the Protuguese trade in the 15th-18th century, and particularly its affects on Africans and the relationship between the church and the slaves, as well as 'others'. This book is scholarly and perhaps slightly dry, but not startinly so, in fact it is also readable and interesting, refreshing and original.

Surely this book adds scholarship to the period, espcially illuminating the relationship between slaves, brazilian society and the church in both Brazil and Portugal. Of particular interest is the work regarding the inqusitions attempts to snuff out tribal religons that remained among slaves brought to the new world.

Seth J. Frantzman

Reflections of South Carolina gives an excellent glimpse into all that is South Carolina. Photographs range from the beautiful beaches along the coast to college campuses and the biggest cities to the smallest counties throughout the state. The photographs by Robert Clark are exquisite and make you feel as if you are a part of them. You do not have to be a South Carolina native - I'm not!- to appeciate this book. Makes a wonderful gift to anyone who loves this state.

Published by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, this book provides a brief but thorough account of the events leading up to secession. This story is told in the context of perhaps South Carolina's most significant historical document, the Ordinance of Secession. [...]

It is a commonplace to speak of how quickly event move in our age, but I doubt events have ever so overwhelmed the nation the way the did between Oct 1859 and April 1861. In the beginning the sectional crisis seemed to have subsided and "Black Republicanism" was a tendency, easily overcome by the democratic party (or "the Democracy" as it was called). At the end, the war had begun and the battle was about to be joined.

Crofts book, focuses on the weeks between the election of Lincoln on Nov 6, 1860 and the proclamation calling up an army to subdue the rebel states on April 16, 1861. Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee initially and decisively defeated the drive towards secession only to be undone by being forced to choose between making war on fellow americans (and fellow southerners) or secession.

Crofts focuses on southern unionists, old Whigs for the most part, who participated in last minute negiations for a peaceful resolution of the crisis as well as William Seward and Stephen A. Douglas who were the chief go betweens. Previously historian like Kenneth Stampp have been dismissive of the efforts of the peace camp but Crofts build a compelling case for the legitimacy and viability of their negotiations and poses some difficult "what if" questions in the epilogue.

Like all good Civil War history, it will displease ideologues on both sides. It does not sanctify Lincoln or his course taken in rearming Fort Sumter and raising the army. While the militant "southern rights" prosecession camp seem like so many demagogic hotheads (at least that is how they appeared to the Southern Unionists).

Also it is a remarkable analysis combining primary historical research and statistical methods and is path breaking in contributing to what Stephen Hahn refers to as a "dissenter" tradition in Southern politics.

Finally this book was inspired by David M. Potter's LINCOLN AND HIS PARTY IN THE SECESSION CRISIS. In the most recent edition Crofts has the introduction to this 1943 classic. Read the both and really get an education!

The author does a beautiful job of bringing my charming Coastal NC hometown to life! The book is full of humor and wit! So many memories flood back as I read it. His writing style is as if you are sitting next to your best friend, sipping a glass of iced tea and laughing about growing up. The writing seems effortless but only because the book is so well written.

Some of the places he describes I have never actually visited, but feel as if I have been there due to his vivid and picturesque descriptions. Crayton's writing and descriptions kept me interested and wanting more from the beginning to the end. I have shared this book with relatives and friends.

Mr. Crayton, if you read this, how about your next book being about another one of my favorite haunts, Atlantic Beach!!

Having spend my college and young adult years in Columbia, SC, and being a lover of folklore and anecdotes, I found this book to be a great read.

Dr. Miles Richards, who came to Columbia in 1983 (the same year I did) found some fascinating crime and human interest stories from the files of the (dearly departed) Columbia Record, which was the city's afternoon paper with a lower-income and-education clientele than the still functioning Columbia State. Many of these read something like a 1920s "America's Dumbest Criminals" while others are touching and funny. Instead of straight reproductions of these stories, Dr. Richards put them in an anecdote format in modern language for today's readers.

While some of these are a hoot (especially the tale of the drunken viewers of an air show who nearly riot at the air field over the poor performance), some of the stories involving the African-American community have a touch of pathos when one considers the Jim Crow, poor education, and poverty that most of Columbia's blacks faced at the time.

Those familiar with Columbia's history will enjoy reading some little known tales about local landmarks and people such as the Jefferson Hotel, the pioneering Black lawyer Nathaniel Frederick, and the legendary charlatan "Dr. Buzzard."

But even if you know nothing about Columbia, SC or its history, this is the kind leisurely read that one does on the porch as the sun goes down or in front of your fireplace on a winter day.

Professor Lu has written a thorough cross-cultural analysis comparing classical Chinese and classical Greek rhetoric. She corrects many of the incorrect assumptions regarding ancient Chinese rhetoric, such as the mistaken notion that Chinese rhetoric was inherently illogical and non-persuasive. Lu presents a thorough analysis of the many early Chinese rhetoricians and rhetorical approaches and compares them to Sophistry and Aristotlean theories of rhetoric.

In this thorough and readable study, Daniel C. Littlefield examines the African heritage of rice cultivation in colonial South Carolina. Littlefield discusses the choices rice planters made in securing workers from certain African regions; he also discusses the knowledge these Africans brought to the plantation economy. Littlefield argues that expertise in rice cultivation mostly came to South Carolina from Africa. Rice was grown by the Malagasy, the people of Madagascar, and by many peoples of Upper Guinea (a region encompassing the modern nations of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia). South Carolina planters, in fact, paid the highest prices for workers from Senegambia (the environs of the Senegal and Gambia rivers), a major center of rice cultivation in Africa. Littlefield argues that, throughout the era of the slave trade, South Carolina merchants and planters showed an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of African regions and ethnic groups. He also asserts that not only African labor, but African expertise helped generate the wealth of the opulent Carolina Lowcountry. This work should prove interesting to those interested in African-American history, Southern history, and colonial American demography. Particularly intriguing is Littlefield's research based on the newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves in South Carolina. That portion of the work includes a list of different African ethnic groups present in South Carolina.