3 comments about Yesterday in the Hills (Brown Thrasher Books).

1. "Yesterday In The Hills" is the story of the Ballground/Canton/North Georgia hill country settlements. It tells a story of people too poor to live and too proud to give up. I'm descended from these people, and I'm very proud of my roots. I'm white, yes. But these stories, anecdotes, and tall tales need to be preserved.

   This is before the depression. This is making a living before the "new deal." This is life before the urbanization of America. This is the story of when people lived on and off their land. This is the story of men and women who settled the land and found it good. This is the story of Georgia, and all the lands where work, industry, faithfulness, and hope were the by-words.

   Buy this book. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll remember when Momma's fried chicken, and pastor's sermon would keep you awake for days. But most of all, you'll remember a time passed, when things seemed simpler and the world was larger. . .but most of all when community meant just that. . .read THIS BOOK




2. These stories are the kinds of stories we should all be passing down in our families and communities. Through such stories young people find out who they are. The people in long ago Ballground, Georgia were poor, but in many ways they were richer than most of us now. Their daily lives had texture and provided a closer walk with the natural world. Just to survive required hard work, cooperation, and wisdom. Humor was a nice extra too and these stories have that extra in abundance. My mother's family lived right on the outskirts of Ballground, and many of her stories could fit right in this book. This is a great read!



3. "Yesterday in the Hills" provides in-depth details about the daily lives of individual poor North Georgia farmers and their families in the early twentieth century. The details are given in the form of stories about indiviual lives and events. Humor, courting, medical practices, farming, family life, poverty, loafing, hunting, gardening, childhood games, etc., are all described in detail. The book reads easily and the stories leave a lasting impression. A very good read.

No comments about Hanson, Henson, Hinson, Hynson: And Allied Family Names : Early Records of the Southeast United States (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, & Mississippi).

No comments about Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the Slaveholding South (Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures, No 31).

3 comments about Slender Is The Thread: Tales from a Country Law Office.

1. Slender is the Thread is an account of the attorney/author Harry M. Caudill's law practice in the Appalachian community of Letcher County, KY. In his book, Caudill relives various cases and political events in his life in this country county. Much of his writing is witty and satirical in dealing with some very serious issues. He writes of corruption in the legal and political system as well as "mountain" ways of dealing with daily problems in the lives of mountain folk. The book provides vivid and colorful accounts allowing the reader to become absorbed in Caudill's words to the point of feeling like you are there. The names of various real persons and politicians in Letcher county are mentioned in the book. The book also provides some very interesting history of Letcher county and Appalachian region of Kentucky. Caudill has written other books like "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" and "Theirs Be the Powers." Caudill is presently dead and his books on Appalachia are very scarce but well worth the extra effort to obtain for reading. I rate "Slender is the Thread" with four stars.



2. This book almost tells the reader more than he wants to know. How could crooked politicians, coal and lumber companies take such advantage of a poverty stricken and illiterate people to hold them down like animals (or worse) generation after generation? The stories are fascinating but there is always the underlying sadness of knowing this actually happened and much of it still thrives. Little has changed in 200 years.



3. A string of books by Harry M. Caudill beginning in the early 60's with Night Comes to The Cumberlands kicked down the door for the region. Caudill's biography of a land where economic prosperity for a few had left others with very little ushered the Great Society into Central Appalachia, created the Appalachian Regional Commission, led to the rise of prominent Appalachian politicians like Robert Byrd and Carl D. Perkins, and as some critics would come to say, caused the region to become wholly dependant on Federal money. Slender is the Thread: Tales from a Country Law Office, finds an older Caudill looking fondly on the world he swung the wrecking ball to help destroy, a world of corrupt corporations, corrupt (but often likeable) political bosses and local power players, and a diverse crowd of Appalachian Stereotypes, as he reminisces in a what would most accurately be described as a series of short stories relaying the cases and dealings of himself and other local attorneys, his peers as well as his mentors, in which Caudill peppers with humorous anecdotes.
   Caudill takes the title from a phrase used by his friend and colleague John Y. Brown I, a prominent Lexington criminal attorney. Caudill relates how Brown, who had planned on using the title for a book he never got around to writing, reflected on the uncertainty of the legal process, the blind goddess of justice, holding the scales in her hand by a thread, and how perfect justice could be easily corrupted and unbalanced by that slender thread. This theme is what Caudill uses to weave together a series of otherwise unrelated narratives of his experiences in Eastern Kentucky courtrooms and politics. He describes in a vivid storyteller's detail cases in which he wonders how the goddess of blind justice would have looked upon the decision. In one such case, involving an African-American miner who, after being ostracized by the local community for his alleged philandering with some of the younger women in the community, took vengeance by emptying a shotgun on the roof of a house where a party was taking place, a party he wasn't invited too. In the three months between his hearing and his trial, Caudill retells advising his client to make amends with the local black community, who had shown up full force at the hearing to see him off to prison. Caudill advises his client to pay for the damages to the roof, and begin attending church on a regular basis, moving up one pew a week, until, when he reaches the front pew, going to the altar to seek redemption. Caudill relates how that, much to the ire of the judge and prosecuting attorney the black community turned out again, this time to beg that the charges be dropped. After the charges are dropped, of course, the accused returned to his philandering ways, and came home one day to a vengeful wife, who put five .22 shorts into his back. Surviving the incident, the man and his wife subsequently "made up" and he wound up having to pay her fine of $200, which he claimed he was paying for "over forty dollars a shot"...Caudill comments that despite her past frowning on the measure, the goddess of justice somehow managed a smile that day.
   Other days leave Caudill less certain. In other incidents, he describes jury tampering in both district and "squire" court, some by parents of involved parties, and other times just because a powerful "boss" enjoyed throwing his weight around. Caudill also questions the nature of the justice when it was in his favor, when he was awarded a third of the considerable estate of a Russian immigrant miner, since his heir lived in the USSR and the only contact that could be made with them was through the Soviet embassy, and the Judge knew that the heir would never see a penny of that money.
   As he ventures into politics, Caudill describes machine politics of every sort, vote-buying, pardon-buying, and all other sorts of corruption that would make The Duke's of Hazzard's Boss Hogg smile. Caudill relays tales of a local salesman/land-grabber who, after killing his mistress's husband, buys a hundred-thousand dollar pardon from the governor, who later on, while running for Senator, the former governor asks the pardoned man's help, only to find out that he won't vote or support someone who he believes to be crooked. Caudill concludes his book with tributes to Carl D. Perkins, whom Caudill describes as being revered as almost a saint in Eastern Kentucky; even by his political enemies, and other local lawyers who he felt established the craft in Eastern Kentucky.
   While Slender is the Thread is packed with colorful anecdotes about the Eastern Kentucky legal system, Eastern Kentucky lawyers and the people they represent, it contains little sociological "meat" so to speak, no theories or ideas are discussed, and nothing is quoted or even footnoted. Of course, Caudill is not writing for that purpose either. Slender is the Thread reads more like an evening of old lawyers swapping stories than an academic discussion on Appalachia, it's problems, it's people, and even it's legal structure. Unlike in his previous works, Caudill rarely finds outrage in the corruption he describes, at times it seems like he longs for it. While corporate corruption and the condemnation thereof was predominant in Caudill's earlier works, political and sometimes legal corruption doesn't seem to get under the skin of this Appalachian crusader that much.
   Slender is the Thread, however, while not containing much sociological meat per say, is, and should be, a book of interest to people in the legal system in Eastern Kentucky and the rest of central Appalachia. With good reason it ranks highly on the suggested Summer Reading list for the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia. Prospective lawyers, politicians, and others who would be interested in practicing their craft in the Appalachian region would do well to read this book, which, although probably not as prevalent, much of the same structure Caudill describes still exists, as recent Federal vote fraud cases in Knott and Pike counties can attest to.

3 comments about Georgia Odyssey.

1. Dr. Jim Cobb has written a marvelous volume on the state of Georgia and the changes that have molded it since precolonial days. He delves into the different socioeconomic, cultural and political arenas of Gerogia's history and shows us the State, warts and all, as it has been transformed over the last 200+ years. Prof. Cobb writes as only one who has lived and truly understands and loves the South can. A very satisfying read.

   P.S.- It didn't hurt any to have had this fine gentleman as my old high school history teacher in his pre-University/academic days!




2. Go ahead and spend a couple more dollars and pick up a copy of the "New Georgia Guide." You'll get Dr. Cobb's "Georgia Odyssey" and the abbreviated history of almost every little town, community, nook, and cranny of Georgia. Historically speaking, Cobb achieved the task the the State asked him, write a consise history of Georgia. The book is a valuable asset to an intro to local history class, but the "New Georgia Guide" is full of those tasty tidbits Cobb, was probably forced, to leave out.



3. Jim Cobb has produced an engaging story of Georgia, half-memoir, that turns out to be a terrific textbook. Try it with high-schoolers, and just read it yourself. Nobody's intelligence is insulted, but even teens can enjoy this.

5 comments about WHERE PEACHTREE MEETS SWEET AUBURN: The Saga of Two Families and the Making of Atlanta.

1. I've read several of Gary's books and found this one to be an amazing work of not only scholarship and very detailed research but it was also very readable. Some people may be put off by the sheer size of the book but once I was hooked (it took a few pages), I really couldn't put it down until I was done.
   
   Luckily, I was on a cruise and quite a few sea days to lie back in the sun and savour this wonderful book.
   
   I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interest in how the South was transformed (both intentionally and unintentionally) by a small number of people with not only immense vision but also immense bravery and a sense of justice.
   
   Bravo Gary!



2. This book not only is about two families but also about how those two families influenced and built one of the great metropolises of America. Greatly narrated and beautifully told.



3. As a recent transplant to the city of Atlanta, I didn't know much about Atlanta's history. And as an African American woman with grandparents who left the South in search of bigger opportunities in the North, I was more aware of the racism than I was of how and who ushered in the social and economic change that created more opportunities for my generation. The book is extremely well written and once I started I couldn't put it down. This is great way to learn about history. Anyone interested in Atlanta's history in particular and American history in general should read this book!!!!!!



4. Not quite finished yet, but am enjoying very much. Great to know the people behind all those street names around town and how the city got its reputation as "the city too busy to hate"



5. "Fascinating Atlanta history of five generations of the Dobbs family, descendants of slaves and the Allen family, former slave owners."

No comments about Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War, Volume I : Official Rolls of Loyalists Recruited from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

2 comments about Slave Ancestral Research: It's Something Else..

1. Mary L. Jackson Fears, Slave Ancestral Research, It's Something Else (Bowie: Heritage Books, 1995) is a good story of one person's ten-year search in Georgia records (mainly Taylor and Crawford counties) with plenty of examples, illustrated by reproductions of original documents. Written in an appealing personal style, readers are taken through Ms. Jackson Fears' trials and triumphs in search of her slave ancestors. Along the way, we learn much about the strengths, weaknesses and even pitfalls of various types of records. Although there are numerous useful illustrations (most of them adequately legible), the quality of their reproduction is poor. This book is particularly useful to researchers in Georgia records, although there is much general applicablity to Southern records in general.



2. Mary Fears did a remarkable job on the research of her slave ancestors. The book was of particular interest to me because it led back to my own ancestor, Bartley McCrary, a Revolutionary War soldier. He was the slaveowner of the author's ancestor.
   
   I found the information she presents was well-documented. In addition, she writes of her own idea from the slaves'viewpoint on their treatment by their owners, thoughts that really tug at your heart. She presents the many difficulties in researching slaves and shows how they were treated as commodities instead of human beings as well as not even giving them last names. I was very happy to have found this book as it certainly gave me a different perspective of the era of slavery in America.
   Betty Meischen

No comments about Cornerstones of Georgia History: Documents That Formed the State.

1 comments about Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733.

1. Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733 offers a chronological view of Savannah history, including period photogrpahs and sketches. If you are acquainted with Savannah, this book will help solidify your knowlegde. If you are new to Savannah or need to learn more about the city, the book will increase your knowledge. The only drawback -- the authors should have given more attention to the 20th century... Babe Ruth's historic home run in the city's minor league stadium, some devastating hurricanes etc.