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Tag Archives: Alabama
Confederate Women
Continuing in my march through Bell Irwin Wiley’s social histories of the Civil War, I bought Confederate Women immediately after reading Billy Yank. Confederate Women looks at the diaries and letters of three socially prominent southern belles and … Continue reading
Ten Strange Ways to Die In Colonial Alabama
I’d intended to post this list earlier in the week for the Top Ten Tuesday freebie, but couldn’t remember the name of the book I was using, Alabama Mortality Schedule (1850, Seventh Census of the United States). I stumbled on … Continue reading
The Fighting Little Judge
Back in 2016, I played with the idea of reading biographies of various populists, for obvious reasons. William Jennings Bryant, Huey Long, and George C. Wallace were the three figures who leapt most to mind. Although George C. Wallace is … Continue reading
Posted in history, Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged 1960s, 1970s, Alabama, biography, Civil Rights, George C. Wallace, history, Politics-CivicInterest, populism, race
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Selma’s Mayor
Like most, if not all, Selmians, I was surprised and saddened by the sudden death of former Mayor George Evans. The mayor had been a figure in my life since I was a child, as he was the school superintendent … Continue reading
Short rounds: people and their places
In One No, Many Yeses, journalist and green activist Paul Kingsnorth detailed his journeys across the world, spending time with people who were actively resisting globalization — or rather, the disruptions that globalization caused in their local communities. Real England: … Continue reading
Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged 1970s, 2000s, Alabama, American South, Britain, localism, Louisiana, memoir, Mississippi, Nonfiction 2025, politics, travel
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Selma: An Architectural Field Guide
Note: Yes, this has nothing to do with Read of England, but the author sent me a copy for review on publication. Additionally, I assisted in some of the background research and fact-checking in the book’s final stages. My hometown … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Alabama, architecture, history, Nonfiction 2025, Selma, Susan Besser
8 Comments
Alabama honors the Marquis de Lafayette!
Two hundred years ago today the Marquis de Lafayette, as part of a tour of the rapidly-expanding United States, visited the capital of Alabama, Cahawba. Sitting at the convergence of the Alabama and Cahawba rivers, this river city was the … Continue reading
Kinfolk
It’s the early seventies. Come to rural Park, Alabama, a town that don’t have much goin’ on except its occasional American Legion meetings, a place that ain’t even on most maps. There’s a fella, Nub, and everyone knows he’s the … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Alabama, American South, historical fiction, Sean Dietrich, Southern Literature
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Brutal Reckoning
I live in a place named for people no longer present: the Alibamu[*], part of the Creek confederacy which was driven from the southeast after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. I loved history even as a child, and it was … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Alabama, American Frontier, American South, Colonial America, Early American Republic, military, Native America, War of 1812
2 Comments
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