Mississippi Books

The "great river" is the Mississippi River that provides the western border of Wisconsin. This 250 mile stretch of the river showcases spectacular scenery. Beginning in the north at Prescott, and continuing down to Potosi in the south, there is a superb highway running down along side which is called the "Great River Road". Norm Rogers and Chris Dinesen Rogers have collaborated to produce for the traveler or vacationer traveling along this highway system a highly recommended and very portable compendium of 101 suggestions of things to do and see. Designed with one specific suggestion per page, each entry also includes a specific and relevant fact. If you are planning a day-trip or an extended weekend along Wisconsin's share of the Great River Road, then begin planning your itinerary by browsing through the pages of Norm and Chris Rogers' 101 Things To Do On The Wisconsin Great River Road!

For the past several years, Chris and I have traveled the Great River Road in Wisconsin, and while doing so, looked for the perfect travel guide. Everything we found seemed to be self-serving, paid advertisements, so we decided to write our own. "101 Things To Do" is a list of fun things that can be enjoyed by the entire family. It turned out to be the best little book. Even after driving the Road a dozen times, it still keeps us busy. I would recommend this book to anyone.

A delightful travel companion with interesting suggestions and fun trivia! Definitely leads you down the "road less traveled" with great results!

This collection is very well edited and well conceived. I'm grateful to the editor for including the smart interviewers as well as others who asked idiotic questions - but most of all for including the interviews where Tarkovsky treads on culturally controversial ground. This collection of interviews fills the gap between Sculpting in Time and books about the director by various authors. I would consider this and Tarkovsky's own book as the two essential texts. Also, a few very funny, antagonistic answers to interview questions make for great reading. You're unlikely to finish this book and still wonder why some crew members found it difficult to work with him.

This book of interviews with the master is a must for all who love great film, and especially fans of Russian Cinema (and of course Tarkovsky). Thanks Mr. Gianvito!

This book is an absolutely fascinating read for any Tarkovsky fan. It gives a real insight into the individual films but more significantly it also helps you understand much better where Tarkovsky himself was coming from. It will also be of interest to people interested in modern cinema, but it is probably best to have seen most of Tarkovsky's films first (there are only about 7 of them). One amusing aspect of the book is seeing different interviewers ask the same, often stupid, questions over a twenty-year period. However, there is plenty of rich material in the book so the repeated questions do not really detract from it, indeed, it is amusing to watch how Tarkovsky deals with them in different times and different contexts.

Not a bad text. I have heard a rare recording of the underrated hero Medgar Evers speaking once, and no he was not a "personality cult" leader who dazzled the masses with snappy slogans, but a sincere individual who appealed to people on the grounds of reason and integrity.

In texts such as the 1958 Ebony magazine article and the 1963 television show in Jackson, Miss (where he lived and died), he appeals to those unconvinced by his fight against segregation to put themselves in his place. His stands for human dignity as described in his NAACP reports in the book is heartwarming when you consider that he risked his life to make such statements.

The Life of Evers cries out for a DVD or an "American Experience" episode. Unfortuantely, the so-called "leaders" and their paper-tiger soundbyte "causes" of today are a far comedown from the true heroes of Evers' era (and Mrs. Myrlie Evers herself makes this point in far more polite terms in her intro). Sadly, most of the truly great ones like Evers are now dead. Hopefully, this will inspire a future generation to get it right and back on track.

I watched Myrlie Evers-Williams talk about the book and so much more on C-SPAN II, Book TV. She was appearing at Karibu Bookstore in Hyattsville, Maryland on 6/17/05 and I was so moved by what she said that I bought and read the book. I wish the book were bundled with a copy of that talk because in her talk it is beautifully and forcefully made clear that although Medgar Evers was assassinated on June 12, 1963, his spirit and his work survive and continue to nudge, persuade, inspire, and demand of us that his vision is not nearly fulfilled and it is our job to join together to keep up the work. And dare I say, in the midst of such serious considerations, that the man had a wicked sense of the satiric? His letters to Eisenhower, to the admissions people at the white college that refused admission to him, and others are not only important historical documents about the civil rights struggle in the U.S., they are also really wonderful writing and make great reading-aloud material. I'd love to see one of those moving one-man theatrical productions staged based on this book, his writings, and his wife's continued growth, struggle, and determined leadership after his murder. What a story! What wonderful American lives!

Medger Evers was truly a Pioneer of Change. He died far too young at only age 37. this Book traces His speeches,writings&Letters at about bringing changes.He was One of the Most Important figures during the Civil Rights Movement.Much Respect to His Widow Myrlie Evers-Williams for sharing these Important Documents of History that speak of a Ugly chapter in America.this is a Must Read Book&Have Book.very Educational&a Book that reflects a time period that wasn't that long ago.

Having grown up back in a day when we were taught Antebellum life was a monolithic experience for African Americans, books like this - opening an entirely new door on that era - always fascinate me even though by now, I know better. For example, who knew that some slaves hired themselves out on steamboats for a few weeks or months with no intention of escaping, but simply as respite from the hardships of plantation life?

The title is obviously a play on Mark Twain's nostalgic memoir. Though Buchanan does find some similarities between Twain's liberating experience of the Great River and the opportunities afforded African Americans by the western rivers - for example, mind broadening mobility, communication networks, accumulation of assets by both slave and free persons through labor or trade, and of course, escape routes for fugitives - he notes the dark side absent from steamboat nostalgia is the fact that the horrible "Second Middle Passage" broke up families and transported thousands of slaves in deplorable conditions into the Deep South.

Whether exploring the lives and culture of steamboat workers, free black travelers, abolitionists or scoundrels, the author draws upon the experiences and observations of many individuals through a variety of primary and secondary sources (including slave narratives and travel accounts) demonstrating how multifarious and uncategorizable the experiences of these men and women were. Even many of the laws and customs attempting to control black movement were circumvented in this fluid economy.

Buchanan's writing is concise, and his narrative flows smoothly. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in maritime history as well as those interested in African American Studies.

Thomas Buchanan follows David Cecelski's study of North Carolina's black maritime sailors with this excellent study of black steamboat workers on the Mississippi. Buchanan describes the culture in which the free black and enslaved steamboat crewmen lived, their importance to the southern antebellum economy, as well as, their impact on the institution of slavery. It is in this area that Buchanan an important contribution to our understanding of African American resistance to slavery.

John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger's book on runaway slaves is the most extensive treatments of the subject. Unfortunately, they give short shrift to the importance of the Mississippi River and the steamboat trade as a means of escaping slavery. Buchanan corrects this omission by arguing that African Americans, both free and slave, were a vital part of the steamboat industry's labor force. Runaway slaves from throughout the South often made their escape by blending in with other black steamboat workers and riding steamboats out of slavery. Although aware of the problem, and although numerous measures were enacted to stop it, Southerners were never able to completely stop the flow of slaves escaping by riverboat.

In addition to this book, Buchanan has written two articles on this subject. I recommend all them to anyone interested in the study of African American antebellum life.

Buchanan weaves the compelling narratives of slave, free black, and white workers and passengers on Mississippi steamboats with extensive archival information.

He shows how the river network and steamboat work allowed them to craft multiple ways to resist slavery, poor labor conditions, and the separation of families.

This is a history book with broad appeal to non-historians as well.

This book is great at getting a Civil War novice involved and wanting to know more about the Civil War. Steven Nathaniel Dossman clearly shows the value and importance that Corinth played during the Civil War and how the South needed these 3 feet of land to be successful throughout the war. This book has great added material that helps the text to come alive and allows the reader to relate to what is going on during the Battle of Corinth and the surrounding area. This author has great potential and looking forward to see more books from him.

Written by a descendant of men who battled at Corinth, Campaign for Corinth: Blood in Mississippi examines the events through which the quiet little town of Corinth, Mississippi because one of the South's key strongholds during the American Civil War. Captured after a siege by Federal General Henry Halleck, Corinth became a target of Southern efforts to drive back the Union, and when the bloody campaign for Corinth reached its height, it paved the way for Grant's Vicksburg campaign and the ultimate fate of the Confederacy in the Mississippi Valley. A straightforward and harshly honest accounting of military history, accessible to lay readers and historians alike, and illustrated with occasional black-and-white photographs and maps.

Well, the folks at McWhiney Foundation Press have done it again! This company is determined to make Civil War history accessible and interesting to the greatest number of readers through their Civil War Campaigns and Commanders series. This book is absolutely no exception. Stephen Dossman has written a fast-paced, succinct history of the Confederate campaign to capture Corinth, Mississippi in the fall of 1862, and weaves a masterful tale of heroism, blunder, and foolhardiness. I finished the book amazed at what a tough and scrappy action the battles of Iuka and Corinth (not to mention Davis Bridge) really were.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this book, though, is that Dossman clearly advances his thesis that this campaign doomed the Confederates to lose control of the Mississippi. The book is worth the price to examine that argument alone.

Priced right, fully footnoted, and full of information, this book should appeal to enthusiasts and scholars alike, as well as fans of good history well told. I look forward to reading more book by this author.

This is a fabulous book, filled brillant color photo's of many wonderful ante-bellum homes. I am proud that some one finaly wrote such a great,detailed, and informitive book. If you like classic southern architecture than this is the book for you.I give this book 5 stars!

i loved this book! this is one of the best books on the town of natchez, anyone looking for info on anyone of the many fantastic houses in natchez should bye this book! i looooooooved that one house, longwood, interesting architecture.

This is a fabulous book, filled brillant color photo's of manywonderful ante-bellum homes. I am proud that someone finally wrotesuch a great,detailed, and informitive book. If you like classicsouthern architecture than this is the book for you.I give this book 5stars!

This book was just as advertised. It allowed for easy readability and understanding of an American classic.

Think about this for a sec...
Your going to a grave yard at mid night with a friend to see if devils are really and if there take the body of a dead man who died a couple days befor. Any way you and your friend are waiting for the monsters to come and take the bait but as your waiting you hear a sound but its not what you expect. Its three intirely different people coming for the goods left in the cofin. But then out of no were one of them kills his partnerand blames the other one for doing it! Then you and your friend relize your in grave danger, if the murder finds out that you know what he did then he'll come after you and your buddy next!How did Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn do it? find out by reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

These are just fantastic books. Tom Saywer is the first of these classics that I read to my kids and they absolutely loved it. The book itself is beautifully bound and seems like almost a collectors item. I found that they really did manage to capture all the best parts of the original and kept the pace going so the kids couldn't get enough. Well done....will collect all the Classic Start books!

My third grader loved this book, as well as the one about Huck Finn. He's not one to just pick up a book and start reading. He has to be motivated and encouraged! So, to see him WANT to read this book without me pushing him ~~~ means it MUST be good! He said it was full of adventure and he loves adventure. These Classic Start books are GREAT! I highly recommend!!!

Many have written about Ste. Genevieve, MO, the oldest permanent European settlement in what once was the Upper Louisiana Territory. No one has created a more insightful or more scholarly look at 18th century life in the small Mississippi River town, however, than Carl J. Ekberg has done in his Colonial Ste. Genevieve.

Ekberg uses his expertise in 17th and 18th century European politics to connect the villagers of Ste. Genevieve with the larger world around them. He examines the daily lives of the hardy French Creole (that is, those born in North America, of French ancestry) settlers, probing family, business, religious and slave/master relationships, as well as the settlers' means of making a living and defending themselves from Indian or Anglo attack or from the dangerous Mississippi. The mighty river forced the inhabitants to relocate two miles uphill from the original townsite, late in the 18th century.

Ekberg is best known in Missouri for debunking a number of old myths, such as the town being founded in 1735 or before (He establishes its founding at shortly before 1750.) and the move to the new townsite being made almost en masse, right after the disastrous summer flood of 1785. (He has translated thousands of Spanish letters and documents, confirming that the move took nearly a decade and had started even before the flood, due to widespread erosion of the riverbank.) He also tackles "puffed-up" dates on historic homes in the town, which now relies on heritage tourism for economic growth. These findings have made him unpopular in some Ste. Genevieve circles. They have also marked him as the most important scholar to research the town.

Despite his scholarly prowess and the intimidating inch and a half depth of the book spine, this book is a reward for the reader, not a punishment! Ekberg is no academic hack. His prose flows gracefully, often reading more like a historical romance novel than a history book. For anyone with an interest in French or Spanish Colonial settlements in the Louisiana Territory, or in the history of Missouri, this is a must-buy and must-read. Ste. Genevieve was and is a unique community and Ekberg's is the defining scholarly work on the town.

Ekberg's "Colonial Ste. Genevieve" still stands as the ultimate scholarly work on Ste. Genevieve. While Ekberg's demolition of many old wivestales about the city's history generates the most talk among locals, this is just a footnote to the true value of his work.Through locating and translating thousands of Spanish and French documents from the colonial period, Ekberg succeeds in bringing the period to life and presents the most accurate picture to date of what life must have been like in colonial Ste. Genevieve.Like a compressed computer file, Ekberg somehow squeezes an unfathomable amount of information into this work. Yet it reads quickly and enjoyably. So many inticing issues are addressed: black-white, Indian-white relationships, family structure, economics, religion, romance, etc.Two books should be read by anyone interested in Ste. Genevieve (or French Colonial history in Mo.): Gregory M. Franzwa's "The Story of Old Ste. Genevieve," and Ekberg's chronicle.

Colonial Ste. Genevieve provides an excellent view of Eighteenth Century life in Ste. Genevieve, in particular and in French North-America in general. Founded in the early 1750s, not 1735 as popular history records, the story of Ste. Genevieve provides a view into the changing life in the Mississippi Valley as French gave way to Spanish colonialism and American ways took over, first at the governmental level and, gradually socially as the population changed from being primarily French to Anglo-American. The story of Ste. Genevieve mirrors the story of other French settlements in the area, such as Cahokia, Kaskaskia and St. Louis.

From his role as a European history professor, Carl Eckberg relates events in Ste. Genevieve to developments in Europe which affected the town.

His book is divided into various topics, such as relationships between settlers and Indians, the role of slavery in the community, the economy based in agriculture and lead mining, health care, town and regional government and church organization.

For anyone interested in French colonial life in the heart of America, Colonial Ste. Genevieve is a worthwhile read.

An excellent book on an overlooked period of African-American and Communist Party history. I consider myself well-read on these topics, but was surprised to read that, during the Civil Rights period, white Northern organizers won some acceptance in the South from African-American sharecroppers and laborers as some remembered the work done by the Party to further the rights of African-Americans during the Depression.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Depression-era history.

Mark Solomon has produced perhaps the most important study on the Black struggle in a first ever analysis of the role and contribution of the Communist party, working with Black leaders, in acknowledging and acting on the special nature of racism in America. Ultimately the party leaders learned from Balcks that racism had to be addressed as a prerequisite to fostering black/white working class unity. Unlike the liberal tradition which could only offer "reforms" within the system that produced racism and class exploitation, the Communist Party recognized racism and classism as inherent in the liberal/capitalist system. The party focused sharply on the need for fundamental change of the economic and political institutions as the only real solution for oppression and exploitation. The Party understood the drive for Black self determination was not as a contradiction of class unity. Black self-determination addressed the problem of racism by providing a people with a sense of worth which could then allow them the freedom to go further in confronting the exploitation of black/white class oppression. Lenin understood the importance of national self-determination when he developed his own nationalities policy, and the broader national struggle of colonized people to experience national independence first before uniting to dislodge global capitalism. Solomon's work is comprehensive of the period studied because he was among the first to access former USSR archives elucidating the thread of strong commitment to Black self-determination united with the working class struggle. As a result, he was able to show clearly the importance of the left to offering a real venue for articulating the systemic roots of the issues of racial and class inequalities. As a result, clarity and accuracy of policy, if not strategy, stood out in relief. Solomon plans a sequel to his present seminal work which will focus on the way the cold war affected the Black/Communist relationship and actions. He will also analyze the impact of the recent loss of the left, forcing the Black struggle back to the confines of the liberal/capitalist system. Can a system which produced the problems solve them without altering the conditions within them that produced them? Read Solomon. His work offers the most important analysis to date in understanding the essential core of these yet festering issues. The best scholarship produced on these issues in years.

Taking advantage of archival material, Mark Solomon has written what might be the definitive history of the CPUSA's involvement in the black struggle during the period of the party's formation to the beginning of the popular front turn. ("The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans 1917-1936," U. of Mississippi).

Solomon is emeritus professor at Simmons College and a member of the Committees of Correspondence. The CofC split from the CPUSA because of objections to the dogmatism and bureaucracy of the Gus Hall regime. The event that finally led to the formation of the CofC was Hall's support for the coup against Gorbachev. Some of the most prominent black members of the CP went with the CofC, including Charlene Mitchell who is co-chair of the CofC with Manning Marable, department head of African-American studies at Columbia University. Although Solomon is white, he explains in his introduction why he was drawn to the black struggle:

"The environment we knew was one of spirited demonstrations to save the lives of Rosa Ingram, Willie McGhee, the Martinsville Seven, and other victims of a racist legal system. It included attending vibrant interracial dances at Rockland Palace in Harlem, sitting in awe in the back of Birdland to ask Charlie Parker to support Du Bois for the Senate, and listening to Miles Davis, engaged by the unhip Marxist Labor Youth League, which somehow thought that Davis's brilliant, elliptical bebop was right for dancing. All of that had nearly disappeared by the mid-1950s. But that defiant interracialism, grounded in the unity of cultural traditions, of shared support for all who labored for an end to oppression at home and abroad never died. Its special commitment to, and admiration for, black culture, history, and community life survived and fused with a pervasive sense that the liberation of one group was essential to the spiritual and physical freedom of all."

What is significant, however, is that Solomon understands the progressive character of black nationalism as well, sparing no effort to show how the Communist Party at various points in its history embraced such initiatives. I want to focus in one particular moment in party history, which is highly revealing for the affinity black party members had for nationalism, namely the African Blood Brotherhood. Despite the separatist name, this group was the instrument of Communist Party involvement in the black struggle in the early 1920s.

Cyril Briggs was the founder of the African Black Brotherhood. Born in 1888 on the Caribbean island of Nevis, he always considered himself a "race man". His father was a white plantation overseer and this accounted for Briggs's light complexion, which earned him the description of the "Angry Blond Negro" later in life, just as Malcolm X was dubbed "Detroit Red" before becoming a nationalist for similar reasons. Briggs moved to Harlem in 1905 and launched a writing career, finally landing a job with the Amsterdam News in 1912.

Briggs was swept up by the self-determination rhetoric of WWI which inspired his editorial, "Security for Poles and Serbs, Why not for Colored Nations?," a call for a separate black state in the United States. He was also a strong supporter of the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916.

Briggs started a new magazine called the "Crusader" in 1918 to focus on the struggle for self-determination and black pride. The magazine made no distinction between such goals and more immediate social and economic issues. It backed the Socialist Party electoral campaigns of A. Philip Randolph and exposed lynchings in the south and job discrimination in the north.

In the February 1919 issue, the Crusader began demonstrating a concern with class in the Marxist sense. Comparing the forced removal of black workers from a Pennsylvania steel town (where they had migrated to during wartime labor shortages) to the Palmer Raid deportations of white foreign-born radicals, The Crusader attributed such actions to the "mailed fist of capitalism." By May and June, the magazine was equating capitalism and colonialism, and projecting proletarian unity between black and white workers as a way to eradicate national oppression of black people.

In the first months of American Communism, Briggs drew close to two members of the party's underground, Otto Huiswoud and Claude McKay, who would later become known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. (Huiswoud, another Caribbean immigrant, was a charismatic figure in his own right. He got involved with the Socialist Party while studying agriculture at Cornell University. During a summer job working on a cruise ship, Huiswoud organized a successful job action by black members of the crew for higher pay and better working conditions.) Solomon believes that Briggs became a party member in mid-1921. This connection influenced the direction of Brigg's own organization, the African Blood Brotherhood, which would begin to absorb Marxist influences.

The 1920 ABB convention defined resistance to the KKK, support for a united front of black organizations, and promotion of higher wages and better working conditions for black workers as paramount. While calling for "racial self respect," it also maintained that cooperation with "class-conscious white workers" was necessary. As the ABB drew closer to the Communist Party, nationalistic prejudices as such became less frequent. The Crusader, which was now the semiofficial organ of the ABB, declared that while the oppression of blacks was more severe, blacks and Jews shared a historic experience of persecution.

Furthermore, Briggs began to, as Solomon puts it, "...fuse his own sense of African identity and national culture with Leninist internationalism. He found in African antiquity the primitive communism that provided an Afrocentric root to the vision advanced by the Third International." As opposed to Garvey's nationalist movement, the Marxists of the ABB did not view "Africa for the Africans" as an invitation to capitalist development. He wrote, "Socialism and Communism [were] in practical application in Africa for centuries before they were even advanced as theories in the European world." Within a year or so, the ABB would have evolved into a full-fledged black Marxist organization.

An excellent guide to what to do when the spirit moves, the time allows and the the journey means as much as the destination. A well-written, delightful read. ~Candace

If you are visiting New Orleans for a week and want to see where the locals visit on their day trips - this is the book. The author has done a great job mapping out fun trips for anyone with a car. If you have just moved into the New Orleans area - get this book. The author really covered a lot of territory; and it is fun reading. I am on my 3rd copy - I buy the book, "lend" it out, and then have to buy another one, etc.

Discover the real Louisiana history, culture and more
James Gaffney's Side Trips from New Orleans opens the door to great same-day adventures from the Crescent City. New Orleans is far more than the French Quarter and this neat book gives reason to visit the city for four or five days so to discover the bayou country, the culture, people and history an easy drive from the city. To me, this book is a 'must' when considering a visit to the Big Easy, and a fine reason to stay longer to discover far more.
Leonard J. Hansen, Journalist, Travel Writer and Author