"When the Mississippi school boy is asked who is called the 'Great Commoner' of public life in his State," wrote Mississippi's premier historian Dunbar Rowland in 1901, "he will unhesitatingly answer James Z. George." While George's prominence has decreased through the decades since then, many modern historians still view him as a supremely important Mississippian, with one writing that George (1826-1897) was "Mississippi's most important Democratic leader in the late nineteenth century."

Certainly, the Mexican War veteran, prominent lawyer and planter, Civil War officer, Reconstruction leader, state Supreme Court chief justice, and Mississippi's longest serving United States senator in his day deserves a full biography. And, George's importance was greater than just on the state level as other Southerners copied his tactics to secure white supremacy in their own states.

"James Z. George: Mississippi's Great Commoner" seeks to rectify the lack of attention to George's life. In doing so, this volume utilizes numerous sources never before or only slightly used, primarily a large collection of George's letters held by his descendents and never used by historians. Such wonderful sources allow a glimpse not only into his times, but perhaps more importantly an exploration of the man himself, his traits, personality, and ideas. The result is a picture of an extremely commonplace individual on the surface but an exceptionally complicated man underneath. "James Z. George: Mississippi's Great Commoner" will bring this important Mississippi leader of the nineteenth century back into the minds of twenty-first-century Mississippians.

Prior to the 2020 presidential election, historians considered the disputed 1876 contest-which pitted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden-the most controversial in American history. Examining the work and conclusions of the Potter Committee, the congressional body tasked with investigating the vote, Adam Fairclough's Bulldozed and Betrayed: Louisiana and the Stolen Elections of 1876 sheds new light on the events surrounding the electoral crisis, especially those that occurred in Louisiana, a state singled out for voter intimidation and rampant fraud. The Potter Committee's inquiry led to embarrassment for Democrats, uncovering an array of bribes, forgeries, and even coded telegrams showing that the Tilden campaign had attempted to buy the presidency. Testimony also exposed the treachery of Hayes, who, once installed in the White House, permitted insurrectionary Democrats to overthrow the Republican government in Louisiana that had risen to power during the early days of Reconstruction.

For hundreds of years, farmers and fishing communities maintained the inlet to Ellisville Marsh, a picturesque piece of coastline ten miles south of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Recognized as one of the most environmentally sensitive and ecologically valuable places in the state, the salt marsh and estuary are home to a diverse array of wildlife and a range of habitats, including low-tide mudflats, a saltwater pond, intertidal zone, and fields of tall marsh grass.After agricultural and fishing activities faded away in the late twentieth century, it soon became apparent that protecting the marsh and its surroundings from development would not be enough to restore the natural equilibrium that had been lost when the inlet became blocked. Having witnessed government inaction over the years, Eric P. Cody and four other locals founded the Friends of Ellisville Marsh in 2007 to address erosion, revive tidal flows, and revitalize fisheries and wildlife in the face of climate change. Rescuing Ellisville Marsh presents the powerful case study of backyard activism, telling the story of a community that bonded with a natural place and decided to fight for it.

A vast and desolate region, the Texas-New Mexico borderlands have long been an ideal setting for intrigue and illegal dealings-never more so than in the lawless early days of cattle trafficking and trade among the Plains tribes and Comancheros. This book takes us to the borderlands in the 1860s and 1870s for an in-depth look at Union-Confederate skullduggery amid the infamous Comanche-Comanchero trade in stolen Texas livestock. In 1862, the Confederates abandoned New Mexico Territory and Texas west of the Pecos River, fully expecting to return someday. Meanwhile, administered by Union troops under martial law, the region became a hotbed of Rebel exiles and spies, who gathered intelligence, disrupted federal supply lines, and plotted to retake the Southwest. Using a treasure trove of previously unexplored documents, authors James Bailey Blackshear and Glen Sample Ely trace the complicated network of relationships that drew both Texas cattlemen and Comancheros into these borderlands, revealing the urban elite who were heavily involved in both the legal and illegal transactions that fueled the region's economy. Confederates and Comancheros deftly weaves a complex tale of Texan overreach and New Mexican resistance, explores cattle drives and cattle rustling, and details shady government contracts and bloody frontier justice. Peopled with Rebels and bluecoats, Comanches and Comancheros, Texas cattlemen and New Mexican merchants, opportunistic Indian agents and Anglo arms dealers, this book illustrates how central these contested borderlands were to the history of the American West.

Have you ever driven through a small town with an intriguing name like Wyandotte or Cuyamungue and wondered where that name came from? Or how such well-known placenames as Tucson, Waco, or Tulsa originated?

Native American placenames like these occur all across the American Southwest. This user-friendly guide--covering Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas--provides fascinating information about the meaning and origins of southwestern placenames. With its unique regional approach and compact design, the handbook is especially suitable for curious travelers.

Written by distinguished linguist William Bright, the handbook is organized alphabetically, and its entries for places--including towns, cities, counties, parks, and geographic landmarks--are concise and easy to read. Entries give the state and county, along with all available information on pronunciation, the name of the language from which the name derives, the name's literal meaning, and relevant history.In their introduction to the handbook, editors Alice Anderton and Sean O'Neill provide easy-to-understand pronunciation keys for English and Native languages. They further explain basic linguistic terminology and common southwestern geographical terms such as "mesa," "canyon, " and "barranca."

The book also features maps showing all counties in each of the southwestern states, a list of Native languages and language families, and contact information for tribal headquarters throughout the Southwest.

Claiming Citizenship spotlights a community where Mexican Americans, regardless of social class, embraced a common ideology and worked for access to the full rights of citizenship without confrontation or radicalization. Victoria, Texas, is a small city with a sizable Mexican-descent population dating to the period before the U.S. annexation of the state. There, a complex and nuanced story of ethnic politics unfolded in the middle of the twentieth century. Focusing on grassroots, author Anthony Quiroz shows how the experience of the Mexican American citizens of Victoria, who worked within the system, challenges common assumptions about the power of class to inform ideology and demonstrates that embracing ethnic identity does not always mean rejecting Americanism. Quiroz identifies Victoria as a community in which Mexican Americans did not engage in overt resistance, labor organization, demonstrations, or the rejection of capitalism, democracy, or Anglo culture and society. Victoria's Mexican Americans struggled for equal citizenship as the "loyal opposition," opposing exclusionary practices while embracing many of the values and practices of the dominant society. Various individuals and groups worked, beginning in the 1940s, to bring about integrated schools, better political representation, and a professional class of Mexican Americans whose respectability would help advance the cause of Mexican equality. Their quest for public legitimacy was undertaken within a framework of a bicultural identity that was adaptable to the private, Mexican world of home, church, neighborhood, and family, as well as to the public world of school, work, and politics. Coexistence with Anglo American society and sharing the American dream constituted the desired ideal. Quiroz's study makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Mexican American experience by focusing on groups who chose a more subtle, less confrontational path toward equality. Perhaps, indeed, he describes the more common experience of this ethnic population in twentieth-century America. ANTHONY QUIROZ, an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. A former resident of Victoria, Texas, he has written several articles about the role of Mexican Americans in that city's history. This is his first book.

Ralph McGill (1898-1969) was the editor in chief of the Atlanta Constitution during the turbulent years of the civil rights movement that followed Brown v. Board of Education, and he became an outspoken advocate for integration and racial tolerance in the South. In this Southern Classics edition, Angie Maxwell offers a new critical introduction that analyzes McGill's as an activist and advocate for social change.The editorials that compose A Church, a School marked McGill's emergence as a prolific advocate of nonviolence and social responsibility and evidenced the progressive values of the Constitution. A Church, a School contains twenty-nine editorials that elucidate the historical record of liberal Southern participation in the civil rights movement. This is not a record of what happened in the South in the late 1950s; rather it is a map of the intellectual and psychological terrain that liberal journalists, such as McGill, traveled and the obstacles they encountered.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams: ""There is a Mr. Vanderkemp of New York, a correspondent, I believe, of yours, with whom I have exchanged some letters, without knowing who he is. Will you tell me?"" Adams replied: ""The biography of Mr. Vanderkemp would require a volume...My acquaintance with him began at Leyden, in 1780. He was the minister of the Mennonite congregation, the richest in Europe, in that city, where he was celebrated as the most elegant writer in the Dutch language... In 1788 when the king of Prussia threatened Holland with invasion, his party insisted on his taking a command of the most exposed and most important post in the seven provinces. He was soon surrounded by the Prussian forces, but he defended his fortress...till, abandoned by his nation, destitute of provisions and ammunition, still refusing to surrender, he was offered the most honorable capitulation...despairing of the liberty of his country, he ...determined to emigrate to New York; he wrote to me...requesting letters of introduction. I sent him letters to Governor Clinton and several others of our little great men. His history in this country is equally curious and affecting.... His head is deeply learned, and his heart is pure... 'he is a mountain of salt to the earth,'...Had he been as great a master of our language as he was of his own, he would at this day have been one of the most conspicuous characters in the United States.""Francis Adrian Van der Kemp was a writer, minister, and political leader of some prominence in his native Holland when he fled from religious and political persecution in 1788 to settle in Oneida County in upstate New York. He became one of the area's important citizens during its formative period. His active, inquiring mind ranged far beyond his rural village of Oldenbarneveld. Politics, religion, history, government, scientific agriculture geology, the Erie Canal, the conduct of the War of 1812, and any threat to political or religious freedom stimulated him to research and writing. Van der Kemp's views were sought and respected not only by his friends and neighbors, but by state and national leaders as well. His warm friendship with John and Abigail Adams endured till their deaths, and John Quincy Adams continued the friendship. This is an absorbing biography of an active and influential citizen and resident of central New York State.

In 1955, Frank X. Tolbert, a well-known columnist for the Dallas Morning News, circumnavigated Texas with his nine-year-old-son in a Willis Jeep. The column he phoned in to the newspaper about his adventures, ""Tolbert's Texas,"" was a staple of Walt Davis's childhood. Fifty years later, Walt and his wife, Isabel, have re-explored portions of Tolbert's trek along the boundaries of Texas. The border of Texas is longer than the Amazon River, running through ten distinct ecological zones as it outlines one of the most familiar shapes in geography. According to the Davises, ""Driving its every twist and turn would be like driving from Miami to Los Angeles by way of New York."" Each of this book's sixteen chapters opens with an original drawing by Walt, representing a segment of the Texas border where the authors selected a special place-a national park, a stretch of river, a mountain range, or an archeological site. Using a firsthand account of that place written by a previous visitor (artist, explorer, naturalist, or archeologist), they then identified a contemporary voice (whether biologist, rancher, river-runner, or paleontologist) to serve as a modern-day guide for their journey of rediscovery. This dual perspective allows the authors to attach personal stories to the places they visited, to connect the past with the present, and to compare Texas then with Texas now. Whether retracing botanist Charles Wright's 600-mile walk to El Paso in 1849 or paddling Houston's Buffalo Bayou, where John James Audubon saw ivory-billed woodpeckers in 1837, the Davises seek to remind readers that passionate and determined people wrote the state's natural history. Anyone interested in Texas or its rich natural heritage will find deep enjoyment in Exploring the Edges of Texas.Publication of this book is generously supported by a memorial gift in honor of Mary Frances ""Chan"" Driscoll, a founding member of the Advisory Council of Texas A&M University Press, by her sons Henry B. Paup '70 and T. Edgar Paup '74.

Opened on February 17, 1929, the Mississippi State Preventorium operated continuously until 1976. The Mississippi Preventorium, like similar hospitals throughout the country, was an institution for sickly, anemic, and underweight children. It was established on the grounds of the Mississippi State Tuberculosis Sanitorium in the early years of the twentieth century when tuberculosis was a dreaded disease worldwide. The TB Sanitorium hospital housed those with tuberculosis, offering refuge for patients of all ages afflicted with the pernicious and contagious disease. Although located on the same medical campus, the preventorium was a separate medical institution for children; no children with TB were admitted in the sixty-year run of the hospital. The name preventorium meant a place of preventing disease as there was a fear of sickly children contracting TB. The Mississippi Preventorium was one of the last, if not the very last, of these special hospitals for children. Now closed, the preventorium housed over three thousand children, including author Susan Annah Currie. In this intimate memoir, Currie details her fifteen-month stay at the preventorium. From her arrival in May 1959 at six years old, Currie vividly explores the unique and isolating world that she and children across the country experienced. Her exacting routine, dictated by the nurses and doctors who now acted as her parents, erased the distinction between patients and created both a sense of community among the children and a deep sense of loneliness. From walking silently single file through the cold, narrow halls of the hospital to nurses recording every detail of their bathroom habits to extremely limited visitation from family, Currie's time at the preventorium changed her and those around her, leaving an indelible mark even after their return home. While many of the records from the preventorium have been lost, Currie's memoir opens to readers a lost history largely forgotten. Told in evocative prose, The Preventorium explores Currie's personal trials, both in the hospital and in the echoes of her experiences into adulthood.

In the year 1860, Jean-Pierre Cenac sailed from the sophisticated French city of Bordeaux to begin his new life in the city with the second busiest port of debarkation in the United States. Two years before, he had descended the Pyrenees to Bordeaux from his home village of Barbazan-Debat, a terrain in direct contrast to the flatlands of Louisiana. He arrived in 1860, just when the U.S. Civil War began with the secession of the southern states, and in New Orleans, just where there would be placed a prime military target as the war developed.

Neither Creole nor Acadian, Pierre took his chances in the rural parish of Terrebonne on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pierre's resolute nature, unflagging work ethic, steadfast determination, and farsighted vision earned him a place of respect he could never have imagined when he left his native country. How he forged his place in this new landscape echoes the life journeys of countless immigrants---yet remains uniquely his own. His and his family's stories exemplify the experiences of many nineteenth-century immigrants to Louisiana and the experiences of their twentieth-century descendents.

The story of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is well known: the expansionist Communists overwhelmed a poor country as a means of reaching a warm-water port on the Persian Gulf. Afghan mujahideen upset their plans, holding on with little more than natural fighting skills, until CIA agents came to the rescue with American arms. Humiliated in battle, the Soviets hastily retreated. It is a great story-but it never happened.
In this brilliant, myth-busting account, Rodric Braithwaite, the former British ambassador to Moscow, challenges much of what we know about the Soviets in Afghanistan. He provides an inside look at this little-understood episode, using first-hand accounts and piercing analysis to show the war as it was fought and experienced by the Russians. The invasion was a defensive response to a chaotic situation in the Soviets' immediate neighbor. They intended to establish a stable, friendly government, secure the major towns, and train the police and armed forces before making a rapid exit. But the mission escalated, as did casualties. Braithwaite does not paint the occupation as a Russian triumph. To the contrary, he illustrates the searing effect of the brutal conflict on soldiers, their families, and the broader public, as returning veterans struggled to regain their footing back home.
Now available in paperback, Braithwaite carries readers through these complex and momentous events, capturing those violent and tragic days as no one has done before.

In Forty Acres and a Goat, Will D. Campbell picks up where the award-winning Brother to a Dragonfly leaves off, accounting his adventures during the tumultuous civil rights era. As he navigates through the explosive 1960s, including pivotal moments like the integration of Little Rock High School and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Brother Will finds his faith challenged. To further complicate matters, a series of jobs did not pan out as expected--pastorate in Louisiana, director of religious life at the University of Mississippi, and with the National Council of Churches--leaving Brother Will ""with a call but no steeple."" In an effort to find his place as a preacher, he moves his family to a farm in rural Tennessee and fashions his own unique style of ministry and a maverick relationship with God, land, and all his fellow pilgrims.

Winner of the Casa de las America Prize for Brazilian Literature, The Story of Rufino reconstructs the lively biography of Rufino Jose Maria, set against the historical context of Brazil and Africa in the nineteenth century. The book tells the story of Rufino or Abuncare, a Yoruba Muslim from the kingdom of Oyo, in present-day Nigeria. Enslaved as an adolescent by a rival ethnic group, he was captured by Brazilian slave traders and taken to Brazil as a slave sometime in the early 1820s. In 1835, after being enslaved in Salvador and Rio Grande do Sul, Rufino bought his freedom with money he made as a hired-out slave and perhaps from making Islamic amulets. He found work in Rio de Janeiro as a cook on a slave ship bound for Luanda in Angola, despite the trans-Atlantic slave trade having been illegal in Brazil since 1831. Rufino himself became a petty slave trader. He made a few voyages before his ship was captured by the British and taken to Sierra Leone in 1841 for trial by the Anglo-Brazilian Mixed Commission to determine if it was equipped for the slave trade, since there were no slaves on board. During the three months awaiting the court's decision, Rufino lived among Yoruba Muslims, his people, and attended Quranic and Arabic classes. He later returned to Sierra Leone as a witness in a court case and attended classes with Muslim masters for almost two years. Once back in Brazil, he established himself as a diviner - serving whites and blacks, free and slaves, Brazilians and Africans, Muslim and non-Muslims - as well as a spiritual leader, an Alufa, in the local Afro-Muslim community. In 1853 Rufino was arrested due to rumors of an imminent African slave revolt. The police used as evidence for his arrest the large number of Arabic manuscripts in his possession, the same kind of material the police had found with Muslim rebels in Bahia thirty years earlier. During his interrogation, Rufino told his life story, which is used to reconstruct the world in which he lived under slavery and in freedom on African shores, aboard slave ships, and in Brazil. An extraordinary Atlantic history carefully pieced together from the archives, The Story of Rufino illuminates the complexities of slavery and freedom in Africa and Brazil and the resilience of ethnic and religious identities.

In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, Arrows in a Quiver provides an overview of Indigenous-settler relations, including how land is central to Indigenous identity and how the Canadian state systematically marginalizes Indigenous people. Illustrating the various "arrows in a quiver" that Indigenous people use to fight back, such as grassroots organizing, political engagement, and the courts, Frideres situates "settler colonialism" historically and explains why decolonization requires a fundamental transformation of long-standing government policy for reconciliation to occur. The historical, political, and social context provided by this text offers greater understanding and theorizes what the effective devolution of government power might look like. A comprehensive political and legal overview of Indigenous-settler relations in Canada, written at a level appropriate for post-secondary students, this book is an essential primer for understanding these key relations in Canada today. "A must-read for non-Indigenous settlers in Canada." a David McNab, co-author of Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times "James Frideres has devoted his professional life to analysing this critical topic from multiple perspectives [and now, in Arrows in a Quiver,] he offers crucial insights for possible ways forward." a Arthur J. Ray, OC, FRSC, Professor Emeritus of History, University of British Columbia, and author of Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History

Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women is a statewide study of women's part in the history of conservatism, the New Right, and the Republican Party in the state of Georgia. Robin M. Morris examines how the growth of the Republican Party in the 1960s and 1970s was due in large part to the political activism of white women. The book begins with the African American women who established the Georgia Federation of Republican Women and follows how they lost the organization and the party to white women moving to the Sunbelt South. Conservative white women developed a language and strategy of family values that they deployed to battle school busing, defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, and elect Republican leaders even in Jimmy Carter's home state. Morris uses original interviews and archival research in personal papers of women activists in the Georgia New Right movement, including Lee Ague Miller, Beth Callaway, Kathryn Dunaway, Lee Wysong, and Hattie Greene, to reveal the motivations and actions that transformed the state from blue to red. In this era, perceived threats to family life and traditional values spurred women-led grassroots organization that enabled broad political shifts on the state level. Conservative women carved out their political niche as they consolidated and expanded their power and influence. Rather than a male-dominated, top-down approach, Morris centers her historical account on the middle-class white women whose actions changed the political landscape of the state and ultimately the country.

The Chinese culture in Canada has become widely celebrated. Whether it is through Chinese lantern festivals, the ringing in of the Chinese New Year or the many colourful and interesting nooks and crannies of the Chinatowns found in most of Canadas major cities, the Chinese culture is alive and vibrant. How the Chinese Created Canada provides a more in-depth look at what has gone on behind the scenes and in years past, resulting in a rich, varied and often harrowing dialogue of the Chinese history in Canada.

Offering the first close study of the 'Aqila, a group collectively liable for blood money payments on behalf of a member who committed an accidental homicide, Nurit Tsafrir analyses the group's transformation from a pre-Islamic custom to an institution of the Shari'a, and its further evolution through medieval and post medieval Islamic law and society. Having been an essential factor in the maintenance of social order within Muslim societies, the 'Aqila is the intersection between legal theory and practice, between Islamic law and religion, and between Islamic law and the state. Tracing the history of the 'Aqila, this study reveals how religious values, state considerations and social organization have participated in shaping and reshaping this central institution, which still concerns contemporary Muslim scholars.

David Finch's highly regarded biography of R.M. Patterson is now available in paperback. The escapades of this great Canadian are brought to life in a story that combines the lure of gold, the thrill of wilderness exploration and comic tales about life on a southern Alberta ranch. With access to Patterson's diaries, letters and photographs, as well as numerous interviews with Patterson and members of his family, Finch recounts the adventurous life of this well-loved outdoorsman, writer and rancher and sheds light on some of what Patterson left unsaid. PRAISE FOR "R.M. PATTERSON: A LIFE OF GREAT ADVENTURE" "A worthwhile addition to the literature of the Canadian North, a good read for anyone who wants to know more about the man who helped turn the Nahanni into the legendary river that it is."- "Edmonton Journal" "Finch presents us with the unlikely portrait of the Oxford University graduate who, on a lark, came to Canada in 1924 and decided to stay."--"Calgary Herald" "Calgary historian David Finch has produced a richly detailed portrait of the gentleman adventurer behind the byline."--"The Beaver"

""The Worst Journey in the World" is to travel writing what "War and Peace" is to the novel . . . a masterpiece."--"The New York Review of Books
""When people ask me, 'What is your favorite travel book?' I nearly always name this book. It is about courage, misery, starvation, heroism, exploration, discovery, and friendship." --Paul Theroux
"National Geographic Adventure "magazine hailed this volume as the #1 greatest adventure book of all time. Published in 1922 by an expedition survivor, it recounts the riveting tale of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated race to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of the party, offers sensitive characterizations of each of his companions. Their journal entries complement his narrative, providing vivid perspectives on the expedition's dangers and hardships as well as its inspiring examples of optimism, strength, and selflessness.
Hoping to prove a missing link between reptiles and birds, the author and his companions traveled through the dead of Antarctic winter to the remote breeding grounds of the Emperor Penguin. They crossed a frozen sea in utter darkness, dragging an 800-pound sledge through blizzards, howling winds, and average temperatures of 60 below zero. This "worst journey" was followed by the disastrous trek to the South Pole. Cherry-Garrard's compelling account constitutes a moving testament to Scott and to the other men of the expedition. This new edition of the adventure classic features several pages of vintage photographs.

For thirty-four years Sister Anne Brooks, a Catholic nun and doctor of osteopathy, served one of the nation's most impoverished towns and regions, Tutwiler, in Tallahatchie County in the Mississippi Delta. In 1983, she reopened the Tutwiler Clinic, which had remained closed for five years, as no other physician was willing to serve in Tallahatchie County. Starting with only two other nuns and regularly working twelve-hour days, Brooks's patient load - in a region where seven out of ten patients that walked in her door had no way to pay for care - grew from thirty to forty individuals per month her first year to more than 8,500 annually. Sally Palmer Thomason tells the powerful story of Sister Anne Brooks, beginning with her tumultuous childhood, the contracting and overcoming of crippling arthritis in early adulthood, and her near-unprecedented decision to attend medical school at the age of forty. Dr. Brooks's remarkable dedication and accomplishments in caring for the health and well-being of both the individuals and the community of Tutwiler attracted ongoing attention and was often featured in national publications and media, including People magazine and 60 Minutes. Thomason not only shares Brooks's powerful story but reveals, through excerpts from journal entries, letters, and interviews, the intimate musings that connect Brooks's faith in God to her profound compassion for others. Whether it is Brooks's efforts to desegregate Tutwiler or provide free healthcare, her constant devotion to others is striking.