A fascinating account of how the Mississippi River shaped America.

Colorful characters once populated the Upper Mississippi River Valley swamps and floodplain forests.  These are the river rats, hill folk, and swamp dogs whose stories Kenny Salwey tells so well.  Now long gone, these legendary denizens of the river bottoms come alive in Kenny's signature brand of storytelling, rife with insight and laughter, woodslore and a time-tested philosophy of the natural world.  With a foreword by regional historian Gary...

A chronicle of the Mississippi River in the first half of the nineteenth century--before it was tamed by commerce and technology--draws on first-hand accounts to describe life along the river, natural and man-made disasters, acts of piracy, and cultural celebrations.

Looks at the history of the Mississippi River Valley in the nineteenth century and the economy that developed there, powered by steam engines and slave labor.

Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the...

"An extraordinary story of faith and violence in nineteenth-century America, based on previously confidential documents from the Mormon Church. Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding...

Nearly 1,000 years ago, a vibrant Cahokian community filled the entire Chesterfield Valley. Like Cahokia, this civic, ceremonial, and market center was precisely planned and constructed to reflect important celestial alignments of the sun, moon, and Milky Way. Though only a small portion of the community has been professionally studied, over 100,000 artifacts have been discovered, including exotic materials from the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico....