Them Dark Days

Them Dark Days is a study of the callous, capitalistic nature of the vast rice plantations along the southeastern coast. It is essential reading for anyone whose view of slavery’s horrors might be softened by the current historical emphasis on slave community and family and slave autonomy and empowerment. Looking at Gowrie and Butler Island plantations in Georgia and Chicora Wood in South Carolina, William Dusinberre considers a wide range of issues related to daily life and work there: health, economics, politics, dissidence, coercion, discipline, paternalism, and privilege. Based on overseers’ letters, slave testimonies, and plantation records, Them Dark Days offers a vivid reconstruction of slavery in action and casts a sharp new light on slave history.

From Storyville brothels and narratives of turn-of-the-century New Orleans to plantation tours, Bette Davis films, Elvis memorials, Willa Cather's fiction, and the annual prison rodeo held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Jessica Adams considers spatial and ideological evolutions of southern plantations after slavery. In Wounds of Returning, Adams shows that the slave past returns to inhabit plantation landscapes that have been radically transformed by tourism, consumer culture, and modern modes of punishment--even those landscapes from which slavery has supposedly been banished completely. Adams explores how the commodification of black bodies during slavery did not disappear with abolition--rather, the same principle was transformed into modern consumer capitalism. As Adams demonstrates, however, counternarratives and unexpected cultural hybrids erupt out of attempts to re-create the plantation as an uncomplicated scene of racial relationships or a signifier of national unity. Peeling back the layers of plantation landscapes, Adams reveals connections between seemingly disparate features of modern culture, suggesting that they remain haunted by the force of the unnatural equation of people as property.

Serving the nation in uniform is a career choice. But have you ever wondered about the life of a partner of these brave men and women? Married Quarter is a light-hearted glimpse into the world of the service family, through deployments, postings, illnesses and into retirement. 21 years, 9 postings, 2 deployments, 15 jobs, 1 brain tumour You will laugh and cry as Maria Augustus-Dunn tells you her story: from the perils of dining-in nights to meeting the King of Cambodia; from her disastrous attempt at making a cheesecake to seeing her husband off for a 12-month deployment; from arriving in Townsville in the middle of a cyclone to breaking down on the side of a mountain in Tasmania with a caravan in tow. Married Quarter takes you on a 21-year journey of the highs and lows of life as the spouse of a serving soldier. This book is dedicated to the thousands of unsung heroes — the military spouses of Australia. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to Legacy.

COMBEE is based upon original research and offers the first full account of Tubman's Civil War service and the Combahee River Raid. In the process, it also offers the story of enslaved families living in bondage and fighting for their freedom, and does so using their own distinct and individual voices.

In this masterful portrait of life in Savannah before, during, and after the Civil War, prize-winning historian Jacqueline Jones transports readers to the balmy, raucous streets of that fabled Southern port city. Here is a subtle and rich social history that weaves together stories of the everyday lives of blacks and whites, rich and poor, men and women from all walks of life confronting the transformations that would alter their city forever. Deeply researched and vividly written, Saving Savannah is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the Civil War years.

Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners’ national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people—white women and slaves—and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise.

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

This is the first full-length study of how colour intersected with polity, society and economy in the nineteenth century South. Although legal historians have explored how early Americans legally defined and contested race, that literature has overlooked or downplayed the middle ground occupied by a sizeable mixed-race population of antebellum free people. These were the 'talented tenth' long before W.E.B. Dubois coined the term.