t is sometimes said that Kentucky joined the South after the Civil War, and many books have been devoted to studying the influence of the war and its aftermath on the Commonwealth. But less is known about the decades before the Civil War. In Generations of Hope: Kentucky, 1800-1865, James Ramage and Andrea Watkins explore this crucial but often overlooked period, finding that that the early years of statehood comprised an era of great hope and progress. Ramage and Watkins demonstrate how Kentuckians looked outward, strongly supporting their country in the War of 1812 because they viewed the United States in a global context and wanted it to succeed on the world stage. Kentucky was perceived by the rest of the nation to be a leader among the states. Henry Clay, of course, was one of the great political figures of the era, but several other Kentuckians were candidates at the national level. Kentucky was a state of immigrants who brought their culture and world outlook with them, along with an optimism based on the idea that their region would participate fully in the advances of the day in science, culture, politics, education, and economics. Progress also included military advances, and the authors investigate the development of ideas about service and patriotism in a military context. The authors devote much attention to Kentuckians' complex views on slavery and its impact on the state. Indeed, the analysis of the Civil War is enhanced by understanding the context of the previous sixty years. Drawing upon a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Generations of Hope promises to be a fresh and definitive account of Kentucky's early years. This project is a co-publication with the Kentucky Historical Society.

When John Wesley Hunt came to Kentucky in 1794, his plan was to open a general store in Lexington. A canny judge of business opportunity, he soon expanded his activities and became one of the responsible figures of Kentucky banking and finance. In another kind of venture, he imported fine stallions from the East, significantly improving the bloodlines of thoroughbreds and trotters in the Bluegrass. John Wesley Hunt tells the story of Hunt's business exploits against the background of life in frontier Lexington. James A. Ramage reveals how his innovative solutions to the financial problems of the frontier gave rise to the prosperity and culture of Lexington in the nineteenth century

"The first full biography of the famous Confederate cavalry leader from Kentucky. It provides fresh, unpublished information on all aspects of Morgan's life and furnishes a new perspective on the Civil War. In a highly original interpretation, Ramage portrays Morgan as a revolutionary guerrilla chief. Using the tactics of guerrilla war and making his own rules, Morgan terrorized federal provost marshals in an independent campaign to protect Confederate sympathizers in Kentucky. He killed pickets and used the enemy uniform as a disguise, frequently masquerading as a Union officer. Employing civilians in the fighting, he set off a cycle of escalating violence which culminated in an unauthorized policy of retaliation by his command on the property of Union civilians. To many southerners, Morgan became the prime model of a popular movement for guerrilla warfare that led to the Partisan Ranger Act. For Confederates he was the ideal romantic cavalier, the "Francis Marion of the War," and they make him a folk hero who was especially adored by women. Discerning fact from folklore, Ramage describes Morgan's strengths and weaknesses and suggests that excessive dependence on his war bride contributed to his declining success. The author throws new light on the Indiana-Ohio Raid and the suspenseful escape from the Ohio Penitentiary and unravels the mysteries around Morgan's death in Greeneville, Tennessee. Rebel Raider also shows how in the popular mind John Hunt Morgan was deified as a symbol of the Lost Cause.