Research shows that simulations increase learning and retention, besides research skills. U.S. history and political science teachers will find the simulation approach very rewarding for their students. Appropriate from grade 10 through second year college.

I loved this book. Of course being an Ole Miss graduate and knowing the author helped, but I couldn't put it down. The early history of the university is especially well done. It includes as a bonus an overview of higher education and its struggles in all the State's colleges. Dr. Sansing dispells the wide-spread idea that Governor Bilbo caused the university to lose accreditation by his political hiring and firing; his activity actually was objective and positive for the most part. The section on the Meredith crisis and resulting riots (and resulting and still lingering negative public image) was also well reported and written. I was on campus that Sunday afternoon and night (desperately trying to get off), and the book gives an accurate and fair representation of that event. The last part of the book, though not as interesting as the first, leaves a record of vastly improved racial relations and optimism for the future. The author, an early and consistent advocate for the "universal brotherhood of man" has played a significant role in that progress.

Paul LaViolette has painted a sensitive portrait of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The discriptive scenes, written in short vinettes, have the reader looking through LaViolette's eyes at the flora, birds, and marine life that dwell in this unique area of the United States. His scientific background as an oceanographer certainly added to my personal understanding of the coastline and waters of the Gulf Coast. However, it is written with such a personal touch that I feel like a visitor to LaViolette's home.

Way's is an almost staggering achievement. Mr. Way (now deceased) spent approx. 80 years of his life collecting this information. There isn't any other source that comes close to Way's if you need to know about steamboats on the Western Waters (Pittsburgh westwards).

This is by far one of the best if not the best research tool for looking up the towboats during the steam era. It list the boats what type, type of hull, who built it and where, and a complete history of the boat from begining to its end. With the Way's Packet boat Directory you have a total history of steam river transportation. Totally unsurmountable in knowledge for your research or just curiousity of the history of steam travel.It includes wonderful black and white photos that enable you to feel like you are ready to board and take a trip into time.

Every so often we need to refresh our memory of the bad things that happened in our lifetime. That is why I read books about the Holocaust. It is also why I read this book, telling of what Mississippi was like for black people in the early 1960s. The murder of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney on June 21, 1964, is a defining event in the struggle to bring Mississippi to greater respect for the basic liberties guaranteed to Americans. This book tells the story in some detail, and also covers other events leading up to the murders. And there are some pages telling what has happened since (up to 1988, when the book was published). Very worthwhile and carefully done.

Have you ever wanted to put a face on those whacking Flannery O'Connor characters or be able to paint what Faulkner wrote? If so, then this is your book.

I worked for photographer Birney Imes for one year in Columbus, Mississippi. I was a reporter for his family newspaper. I got a chance to live in the area where Whispering Pines is located and get a feel for Imes's hometown, which is the basis for nearly all of his photographs.

I've driven by the old Whispering Pines building many times, but you wouldn't look twice at the broken down place. What makes Imes a great photographer is that he stops, gets out, and meets the people behind the place. Since he's a hometown boy, the people in the area warm to him and don't mind the intrusion of his camera.

Imes's photos of the haunting owner of Whispering Pines and his surroundings are vintage South -- what you never see from the road. He uses bright lighting in full-bled color to depict a place that now is crubbling in grey dust.

This book comes in a close second to Imes's Juke Joint, a collection of photographs of various southern juke joints in Mississippi. But if you want a mystical vision -- a southern mirage, try Whispering Pines.

Wild Bill Sullivan is probably the most colorful character that South Mississippi has ever produced. Born in mid-18th century, he was the King of Sullivan's Hollow and was accused of 50 killings. He was also the center of numerous pranks and jokes. Because she was a college history professor, the author skillfully weaves the sometimes far-fetched tales into an account of an atypical frontier culture. The narrative also includes pictures and a description of one of the oldest homes in South Mississippi, the Sullivan Home, now on the National Register of Homes. At the beginning of this small but fascinating book, Ms. Hammons, the great-granddaughter of Wild Bill, traces the Sullivans' Irish Roots back to the 1750's. Thomas Sullivan, founder of the Mississippi branch of the clan, had 22 children, 11 by his white legal wife and 11 by his common-law Indian wife. A genealogy of the family is located in the appendix of the book. The latter section of the book centers around the years 1900-1980 and concentrates on other Smith County stories. The book is well-researched with footnotes and bibliograhpy. Here's an example of one of the humorous tales in the book: Outsiders in the late 1800's feared stopping over in the Hollow because of Wild Bill's reputed antipathy towards strangers. One traveler got caught at dark and stopped at the edge of the Hollow. He was cordially greeted, fed, given a bed by the fire, and served a plentiful country breakfast. His host refused any pay for these services. The traveler thanked his host and expressed his relief that he had met such a nice family and had avoided Wild Bill. In reality, Wild Bill had been his host, but he sent the man on his way without revealing his identity. The book also includes a graphic account, in Wild Bill's own words (in 1929 to his grandson-in-law) of the Battle of Shiloh Church, a battle in which several of the Sullivans were killed. After a later incident, Wild Bill and his son Neece had to hide out in the woods for 2 years. However, Bill was only indicted for one killing--of his own brother Wilson!

I only recently discovered Stephen Kirkpatrick's work at his Wilder Mississippi exibit at the Natural Science Museum in Jackson, MS. The exibit was breathtaking! Stephen Kirkpatrick has spent hours in the wilderness, swamps, creeks, woods of Mississippi capturing wildlife up close and in a way that I have never been able to experience in all my 36 years in the Mississippi outdoors. This book is bound to become a classic coffee table book for ALL nature enthusiast, not just Mississippians. Breathtaking photography!

It is too bad that the first novel "The Hamlet" is not included (it appears in an earlier volume of this excellent series of The Library Of America) with "The Town" and "The Mansion" in this wonderful tale of growth and maturity of the outcast Snopes clan to a Snopes family of civic prominence. The three novels need to be read in their order to feel the strength of uneducated and poor individuals struggling for opportunities to better themselves, successfully, to claim the privileges of wealth that only the aristocracy of landowners enjoy. This is the new Yoknapatawpha County of automobiles and areoplanes. The old wilderness of the bear hunters was long ago paved over for speed. "The Reivers" is a long hearty laugh at innocence in a whore house. Told from a boy's viewpoint, the action is very adult and funny as adults pursue their urges for sex and gambling. The horse race is a fine piece of sustained Faulkner writing. Buy this book. It is a keeper.