Hard to easily categorize but North Carolina residents will find this a compelling cultural account. Marimar McNaughton's Outer Banks Architecture provides a survey of North Carolina's outer banks region, examining the architectural heritage of cottages, lodges, and other structures. Black and white photos of selected structures are accompanied by descriptions, architectural notes, and history.

Marimar McNaughton's Outer Banks Architecture: An Anthology Of Outposts, Lodges And Cottages is a compendium of facts, anecdotes and photos showcasing the North Carolina Outer Banks' architectural history and styles that range from simple cottages to elaborate custom built homes and striking commercial buildings to lodges, light houses, life saving stations, and community structures. Outer Banks Architecture is a superb regional architectural study and a valued contribution to the growing literature of American architectural history and accomplishment.

Just the value of the listings of put-in's and take-out's exceed the price of the book. All the distances and many help facts are bonus. Anyone paddling Eastern NC would be foolish not to own this book.

I've cussed the inaccuracies in this book more times than is printable. Benner claims to have canoed every single foot of every single river listed in the book, but it's pretty obvious by the listing of some very glaring errors that he hasn't.Stll, if you intend to canoe or kayak eastern NC flatwater rivers, you'll need this book. It is 95%-98% accurate, but those 2%-5% errors are doozies. Use it as I think it was intended, as a guide, not as gospel, and you'll be okay.My copy has long been my canoeing logbook, too. After every trip, I sit down with my canoeing partner of that trip and fill the book with notes of interesting things seen and make corrections of errors listed in the book, writing in the book itself. That way, when I do another trip with another bowman, I don't have to depend on memory to highlight important things to come about the given flatwater NC river.

With the possible exception of David M. Potter's classic "The Impending Crisis," William Freehling's "Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836" is perhaps the best book written on antebellum America in the past 50 years. Originally published in 1965 and a recipient of the prestigious Bancroft Prize, Freehling's work is a beautifully written and persuasively argued case that the conventional wisdom about the nullification crisis of 1832 is grossly oversimplified and, in the end, fundamentally incorrect.

Two points are central to Freehling's thesis: 1) growing anxiety over slavery and the nascent abolitionist movement - especially acute in the low country - was as important a factor in driving the aggressive states rights posture taken during the nullification crisis as was reaction to the tariff; and 2) South Carolinians themselves were as much to blame for their economic woes during the 1820s and 1830s as the "Tariff of Abominations."

Freehling notes that you can often tell a lot about a society by disproportionate reactions to perceived threats. In this case, the South Carolinian response to the first faint rumblings of abolitionist agitation was far in excess to the actual threat posed in the 1820s and early 30s, according to the author. However, the extremely dense slave population in the South Carolina low country (in some areas slaves out numbered whites 5 to 1), the experience of the Denmark Vesey conspiracy in 1822, the mysterious arsonist fires in Charleston, the constant presence of Yankee peddlers and free black British seamen mixing with the slave population, and the slow but ultimately successful abolition campaign of William Wilberforce in England all conspired to create an environment of fear and doom among the South Carolina gentry.

The traditional interpretation of the tariff's adverse impact in South Carolina was that the local planters were forced to trade their raw goods (in this case cotton) on the international open market but buy their end goods in a protected domestic market. Freehling concedes that there is some basis of truth to this claim, but only for a certain segment of the population. Some of the most ardent nullifiers were low country rice planters whose economic condition was relatively unaffected by the tariff and whose prices remained stable. The issue that welded the low country elite to an issue whose consequences were really absorbed by the up country was (in addition to inter marriage, school days at South Carolina College, etc.) the latter's growing fear of the abolitionists. Moreover, Freehling argues, gross absentee mismanagement of plantations, combined with a poor state financial infrastructure and a penchant to dramatically overspend for luxury items (the much needed specie often flowing outside of the state) were nearly as important in explaining the economic depression that gripped the region for over a decade as the tariff.

Freehling makes his case eloquently and convincingly. For those with a serious interest in early 19th century American history - especially those interested in economic development, states rights doctrine, or the impact of abolitionism - this book cannot be more highly recommended.

If you become interested in the American Civil War you will find yourself going back further and further into our history seeking the roots of this conflict. If you don't choose to return to the Constitutional debates and compromises Freehling's book is one of the best places to begin your attempts to understand just what happened.

This book is an engrossing history of the revolt of South Carolina against the tariffs and trade rules imposed by the general government in Washington D.C. It has a fabulous cast of characters beginning with John C. Calhoun and running down through the South Carolina planters and politicians who ultimately did so much to break up the Union. Andrew Jackson, as president, puts an end to what almost became an armed revolt and could have caused gunfire to errupt in Charleston Bay decades before the showdown came at Fort Sumter.

I loved this book, as I did Mr. Freehling's "Road to Disunion", and only regret that the second volume of that work never did appear as promised.

Mr. Fowler has done a fantastic job of telling of a simpler time in our country. A time when God and family were more important than material things.
The book is one of those books that you can't put down once you have started reading and once you have finished you have to read again. of all the caracters in this book Aunt Laney is my favorite. Her faith in God makes her stand out.
Many of the stories that are told in the book I can remember duplicating in the 50s when I was growing up in the same area of NC. Thanks for taking me back to a simpler time and reminding me how important family is.

A RAISING UP: BRINGS BACK SIGHTS, SMELLS AND GOOD MEMORIES OF THE TOBACCO SEASONS AND THE SPARTAN LIFE ON THE FARM IN NORTH CAROLINA IN THE 1940'S AND 1950'S. TOLD WITH SIMPLICITY AND DEAD-ON INSIGHT,I WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECCOMEND THE BOOK FOR ALL AGE GROUPS.

I purchased this book to learn more about the Outer Banks, which I have long wished to visit and where we will spend a week this summer. It is an amazingly interesting and informative book. Geology, geography, biology, weather, ecology, politics, and more are all discussed as is the importance of each in relation to the others. I found the book engrossing and would recommend it even if you are not going to this unique area of the world. Now when the kids ask me why there is a forest in the dunes I will be able to tell them and I will be much better able to appreciate the beauty of the place.

I picked this book up during a recent week's stay on Topsail Island (one of the southernmost of the Outer Banks). Having never read a book on natural history or the ecology, I was prepared for the paper-pulp equivalent of Sominex.

Never have I been more wrong in my preconceptions about a book. Ribbon of Sand captures PERFECTLY the true mystique of North Carolina's Outer Banks -- how a half-mile wide band of barrier islands survive both because of nature . . . and in spite of it. Each segment of the book ties together both human and natural history. How the wind the shapes the wonderfully high dunes near Kill Devil provided the Wright Brothers with the means to test their gliders and to develop the first airplane. How shifting tides and currents that continue to shape the Outer Banks both abetted . . . and spelled doom for Blackbeard the Pirate.

In short, Ribbon of Sand captured my imagination and instilled in me a greater appreciation for the fragile balance of nature and man on the Outer Banks. I very highly reccomend this book!

This compilation of David Jackson Logan's writings detailing his experiences during the Civil War is second to none! You won't be able to put this outstanding book down until you've finished it. The authors have melded all sources into an unforgettable book.

This book does an outstanding job of following David Jackson Logan's life during the Civil War, through letters to his wife and family, letters to the newspaper, and his diary. I am fortunate to have already known what an outstanding man David Jackson Logan was, as well as, his father, John Randolph Logan, and his siblings. Especially David's brother Ben F. Logan, my great-great grandfather. I hope everyone enjoys reading this incredible book.

Burroughs's book is a wonderful tale of exploration into the dense, winding, wonderful Waccamaw River in SC, and into the mostly forgotten past of his native Horry County. His marvelous sense of detail, poetic sensibility, and grand sympathies with all things natural and human make this a memoroble book indeed. I know Prof. Burroughs might hoot at the comparison, but I enjoyed this book as much as anything I've read in Thoreau.

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. -George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)

This sentiment and the chance discovery of Nathaniel Holmes Bishop's The Voyage of the Paper Canoe (1878), detailing a canoe trip down the East Coast which included a side trip on the Waccamaw River, were the twin impulses that lead Burroughs to return to his native Horry County, SC and make his own trip down the Waccamaw. Burroughs, a professor at Bowdoin, published a terrific collection of essays Billy Watson's Croker Sack in 1991 (it even made Mr. Doggett's Suggested Summer Reading List for Students) and this book is every bit as good.

Whether he's detailing the history of the county, the river and his own family or relating his encounters with the river's unique residents or describing the wildlife he encounters, Burroughs has a sharp eye, a sympathetic ear and a silver tongue. Here is his description of one bird he meets:

Yesterday a red-shouldered hawk had called the day to order, and got its business underway. Today it was a pileated woodpecker: a staccato drum-burst against a hollow tree, then the bird itself. It flew across in front of me, with its peculiar alternation of flap, swoop, and collapse, and its last swoop fetched it up against the trunk of a cypress. It clung there a moment, cocked and primed, a perfectly congruous mixture of Woody Woodpecker, frock-coated nineteenth-century deacon and pterodactyl. Then it gave the tree an abrupt, jackhammer strafing, rolled out its lordly call, and swooped away, leaving the day to its own devices.

If you've ever seen one, you know that a pileated woodpecker has never been described better and if you haven't you must almost feel that now you have.

This is a wonderful bucolic look at the history and nature of the Waccamaw, which will leave you wishing that you too had such a place coursing through your blood.

GRADE: A

This is a very telling, informative and stimulating collection about not only the life of El Compañero Presidente, but Chilean history in general, especially during the years 1970-1973. One comes to understand Allende not as a Napolean of an Orwellian novel but as the embodiment of democracy, human rights and compassion. You will read about and come to understand how Allende came to power (the world's first freely elected socialist president), as well as the true socialist, not communist, nature of the programs he tried to introduce into Chile. You will read about his friendship and re-establishment of relations with revolutoinary Cuba. Included also are some great discourses given before world bodies such as the U.N., decrying, well ahead of the time it has become accepted to do so, what he viewed as the budding New World Order. More than anything, you will get a feel for President Allende's commitment to democracy, human rights and progress for Chile, as evidenced by his last words via radio to the Chilean nation before his assassination: "I have faith in Chile and its destiny."

His words and ideas resonate still in our day. Anyone who believes that Allende was a victim of U.S. policy of containment, of U.S. fears, "justified," during the Cold War of Red communism getting another foothold in Latin America, which is now inapplicable, need merely consider the recent coup attempt in Venezuela of Hugo Chavez, a president similar to Allende in his election, political inclinations and friendship with such world malcontents as Fidel. The fact that the U.S., besides El Salvador, was the only nation in the hemisphere to quickly endorse the new government of a rightist who, like Pinochet, suspended all legislative and judicial bodies speakd volumes. Essentially nothing has changed, which provides for the words of Allende to still be applicable and important 30 years later.

One need merely visit Chile to get a feel for and understand El Compañero Presidente. He lives on in the memories and hearts of many. The tension is still enough that it is a topic better left alone. Allende was a man of the people. He strove to give back to the people. He worked to include the Mapuche, the marginalized of Chile. There was complete freedom of the press in Allende's Chile, as well as not one political prisoner. The situation was entirely the opposite under Pinochet. You will read this and more in this good collection.

Perhaps the highlight of the Salvador Allende Reader is a word from Fidel Castro, meant as a possible warning to Allende, become the defining and stirring memorial to El Compañero Presidente. Castro told Allende he thought "he trusted in democracy probably a little too much."

The words of Allende are not only important and inspiring, but are also urgently needed in our current de-evolutionary perspective of gross-consumerism. The intro. gives us a nicely detailed view of Chile and its potentials w/ Allende as its first democratically elected Marxist president. This was not a regime which ignored human rights. It seemed headed toward a true form of Communism, which may have only become possible by A) A defensive posture unified by the workers and the poor in Chile (i.e. Castroist Cuba during the Bay Of Pigs) and B) A willingness to further the great advancements Allende enacted, to their glorious ends. It reveals the true reality of Socialism and its real possibility and potential. The true failures of Allende were directed more-so by the counter-revolutionary tactics of Chile's Capitalists & those in the US government, who would rather see a military takeover by Pinochet & the deaths of 10,000 Allende sympathizers, including Allende himself, rather than a hint of true justice in the world.

Written by former plantation mistress Julia Peterkin, Scarlet Sister Mary is a novel of intellect, individualism, coltish word play, tradition and most importantly, respect. The novel, like, Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Color Purple, is written in an old southern vernacular, and it tells the story of Sister Mary or Si May-e, a young and sprightly woman at the novel's start. It is some time after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and freedon (used loosely, historically speaking), has come for those individuals who were field slaves or indentured servants. Their opportunity to flee has come, to seek opportunities for self and financial betterment. For some, however, betterment is not up north or anywhere else in the country; it is exactly where it is: the native coastal terrain of South Carolina - the setting for the novel. Religion, faith, folklore, generational history and magic are the ties that bind the folksy and hard working men and women of the Quarters. Dignity and peacefulness does not come from being nomadic, as was in the case of the pioneers to the Midwest and far West; it is closer. It is in the hoeing, the field labor, the mud between the crevices of the rough and crackling flesh. It is in the earth. To combat the joyous harshness of the work is love and a family. And thus, Sister Mary comes into the picture; she is at the marrying age, and July, her suitor, is ready to be her protector and provider. Or so one would believe. Using faith in lore and mythology, Sister Mary's marriage is almost doomed from the start: "'Do, Master, look down and see what a rat is done!' Mary's heart flew up into her mouth. Cold chills ran over her as she ran to see what happened. There it was, a great hole gnawed deep into the bride's cake's tender meat...she fell into bitter dumb sobs...Such bad luck was hard to face." (p.29) And it only advances to something worse via the aid of a love charm and another woman's insatiable lust for the groom's affections. Time passes, and Mary is all alone with her son Unex (shortened for Unexpected). A suffocating cover of depression smothers Sister Mary, and as time heals old wounds, Mary rises into a life of self-satisfaction and sexual gratification. She enters the dominion of sin and religious transgression; she is altered in the eyes of those around her. From Sister Mary, she becomes Scarlet Sister Mary - red with hungry passion as the adjective implies. She has a flock of children, but they are not heart children, as in the case of Unex, but they are passion, lust children. Redemption is nil, and her destiny upon her final breath (in the eyes of her brethren) is clearly understood; her spirit, her soul, is scudding rapidly to the flaming and billowing sulphur pitts of hell. Can redemption and acceptance ever come into her grasp? Will peace ever rectify the wrongs incurred in her heart and mind? Her somewhat sardonic life philosophy and world-weary actions narrow down the chances for hope. But that hand-clenching curiosity does get solved. Banned in Boston when it was first published in 1928 and winner of the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Scarlet Sister Mary is a classic among classics - lyrical in prose and description, vivid in the intellectual exploration of the "Negro question" - (vii) and complex as well as humane. But it is by no means an accurate representation of a specific catagory of people. Consequently, the work, although brilliant, is slightly antiquated and beguiling.

Scarlet Sister Mary is the story of a free-spirited woman's life in the post-Emancipation South. It is unique in its portrayal of an African-American community as capable of independent existence in the South at that time. The culture of the community is portrayed most interestingly and permeates through the religious, spiritual and even medical undertones of story. While Peterkin tells a poetic tale of an independent, strong, rebellious woman (of whom you grow dearly fond, and cannot help but cheer her on in her resistance), one finds it hard to wonder how accurate a picture Peterkin paints as one who viewed African-Americans in the South rather than lived as an African-American in the South. But all in all, this book is a must read (and if you attempt to read it as you would imagine people read the book when it was first published, you have a most scandalous story of taboo story before your eyes!)

If you love romance and like to have a lot of adventure mingled in , you have got to read this book. The writer with her vivid descriptive talent will take you into the life of Anna Kathryn with all the twists and turns you can imagine and then some. You can't wait to see what happens next in this girl's life and how she will affect the life of her capturer. This is a spellbinding book full of descriptive scenes which will last in you memory. The scenes of the waging sea battles, the beautiful island of Barbados and all the characters come to life. So get you a good cup of tea, a comfy chair and get ready for a Great Read, the only sad thing is that it comes to an end.

Since I live in South Carolina, I've always been interested in books set in the South. I loved reading Sea Chase. Once I started it, I found it hard to put down. As I read each word it was easy to envision every detail of this historical romance. The chemistry between the hero and heroine was intriguing and I felt as if I'd been swept back in time. I would highly recommend Sea Chase to anyone, and look forward to reading more books by this author.