True stories of the Show Me state's most infamous crooks, culprits, and cutthroats.

Tracing Route 66 through Missouri represents one of America's favorite exercises in nostalgia, but a discerning glance among the roadside weeds reveals the kind of sordid history that doesn't appear on postcards. Along with vintage cars and picnic baskets, Route 66 was a conduit humming with contraband and crackling with the gunplay of folks like Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and the Young brothers. It was also the preferred byway of lynch mobs, murderous...

Corn, squash, and beans from the Native Americans; barbecue sauces from the Spanish; potatoes and sausages from the Germans: Missouri's foods include a bountiful variety of ingredients. In Food in Missouri: A Cultural Stew, Madeline Matson takes readers on an enticing journey through the history of this state's food, from the hunting and farming methods of the area's earliest inhabitants, through the contributions of the state's substantial African...

The guerrillas who terrorized Missouri during the Civil War were colorful men whose daring and vicious deeds brought them a celebrity never enjoyed by the Federal soldiers who hunted them. Many books have been written about William Quantrill, Bloody Bill" Anderson, George Todd, Tom Livingston and other noted guerrillas. You have probably not heard of George Wolz, Aaron Caton, John Durnell, Thomas Holston or Ludwick St. John. They served in Union cavalry...

"Missouri's history is best told through food, from its Native American and later French colonial roots to the country's first viticultural area. Learn about the state's vibrant barbecue culture, which stems from African American cooks, including Henry Perry, Kansas City's barbecue king. Trace the evolution of iconic dishes such as Kansas City burnt ends, St. Louis gooey butter cake and Springfield cashew chicken. Discover how hardscrabble Ozark farmers...

"Focuses on the lives of immigrant women in Missouri from the colonial period to the Civil War to industrialization. Draws heavily on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of immigrant women from many social classes and ethnic backgrounds and contains photographs and narratives relating to immigrant life"--Provided by publisher.

Excerpt: "Whatever else may be said of Southern statesmen, of the elder school, they certainly had an imperial breadth of view. They took in the whole continent in a way that their Northern colleagues were slow in doing. It cannot be said just when they began to plan for a separate Government which would have Slavery as its cornerstone, would dominate the Continent and ultimately absorb Cuba, Mexico and Central America as far as the Isthmus of Panama."...

"In "Indigenous Missourians: Ancient Societies to the Present," historian Greg Olson argues that the history of Indigenous people in present-day Missouri is far more nuanced, complex, and vibrant than the often-told tragic stories of conflict with white settlers and forced Indian removal would lead us to believe. In this path-breaking narrative, Olson presents the Show Me State's Indigenous past as one spanning twelve millennia of Native presence,...