When The Mississippi Ran Backwards

Author : Conevery Bolton Valencius
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2013-09-25
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226053929

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The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes by Conevery Bolton Valencius Pdf

From December 1811 to February 1812, massive earthquakes shook the middle Mississippi Valley, collapsing homes, snapping large trees midtrunk, and briefly but dramatically reversing the flow of the continent’s mightiest river. For decades, people puzzled over the causes of the quakes, but by the time the nation began to recover from the Civil War, the New Madrid earthquakes had been essentially forgotten. In The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes, Conevery Bolton Valencius remembers this major environmental disaster, demonstrating how events that have been long forgotten, even denied and ridiculed as tall tales, were in fact enormously important at the time of their occurrence, and continue to affect us today. Valencius weaves together scientific and historical evidence to demonstrate the vast role the New Madrid earthquakes played in the United States in the early nineteenth century, shaping the settlement patterns of early western Cherokees and other Indians, heightening the credibility of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa for their Indian League in the War of 1812, giving force to frontier religious revival, and spreading scientific inquiry. Moving into the present, Valencius explores the intertwined reasons—environmental, scientific, social, and economic—why something as consequential as major earthquakes can be lost from public knowledge, offering a cautionary tale in a world struggling to respond to global climate change amid widespread willful denial. Engagingly written and ambitiously researched—both in the scientific literature and the writings of the time—The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes will be an important resource in environmental history, geology, and seismology, as well as history of science and medicine and early American and Native American history.

Author : Christopher Phillips
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : History
ISBN : 9780195187236

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The Rivers Ran Backward by Christopher Phillips Pdf

This work argues that historians have largely ignored the West's centrality to perhaps the Civil War's most lasting outcome: the rise of regionalism as a force in postwar domestic politics.

Author : Jay Feldman
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2012-11-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307388230

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Manufacturing Hysteria by Jay Feldman Pdf

A riveting and unsettling history of the assault on civil rights and liberties in America—from World War I to the War on Terror—by the acclaimed author of When the Mississippi Ran Backwards. In this ambitious and wide-ranging account, Jay Feldman takes us from the run-up to World War I and its anti-German hysteria to the September 11 attacks and Arizona’s current anti-immigration movement. What we see is a striking pattern of elected officials and private citizens alike using the American people’s fears and prejudices to isolate minorities (ethnic, racial, political, religious, or sexual), silence dissent, and stem the growth of civil rights and liberties. Rather than treating this history as a series of discrete moments, Feldman considers the entire programmatic sweep on a scale no one has yet approached. In doing so, he gives us a potent reminder of how, even in America, democracy and civil liberties are never guaranteed.

Author : Jay Feldman
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2007-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781416583103

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When the Mississippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman Pdf

From Jay Feldmen comes an enlightening work about how the most powerful earthquakes in the history of America united the Indians in one last desperate rebellion, reversed the Mississippi River, revealed a seamy murder in the Jefferson family, and altered the course of the War of 1812. On December 15, 1811, two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews murdered a slave in cold blood and put his body parts into a roaring fire. The evidence would have been destroyed but for a rare act of God—or, as some believed, of the Indian chief Tecumseh. That same day, the Mississippi River's first steamboat, piloted by Nicholas Roosevelt, powered itself toward New Orleans on its maiden voyage. The sky grew hazy and red, and jolts of electricity flashed in the air. A prophecy by Tecumseh was about to be fulfilled. He had warned reluctant warrior-tribes that he would stamp his feet and bring down their houses. Sure enough, between December 16, 1811, and late April 1812, a catastrophic series of earthquakes shook the Mississippi River Valley. Of the more than 2,000 tremors that rumbled across the land during this time, three would have measured nearly or greater than 8.0 on the not-yet-devised Richter Scale. Centered in what is now the bootheel region of Missouri, the New Madrid earthquakes were felt as far away as Canada; New York; New Orleans; Washington, DC; and the western part of the Missouri River. A million and a half square miles were affected as the earth's surface remained in a state of constant motion for nearly four months. Towns were destroyed, an eighteen-mile-long by five-mile-wide lake was created, and even the Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards. The quakes uncovered Jefferson's nephews' cruelty and changed the course of the War of 1812 as well as the future of the new republic. In When the Mississippi Ran Backwards, Jay Feldman expertly weaves together the story of the slave murder, the steamboat, Tecumseh, and the war, and brings a forgotten period back to vivid life. Tecumseh's widely believed prophecy, seemingly fulfilled, hastened an unprecedented alliance among southern and northern tribes, who joined the British in a disastrous fight against the U.S. government. By the end of the war, the continental United States was secure against Britain, France, and Spain; the Indians had lost many lives and much land; and Jefferson's nephews were exposed as murderers. The steamboat, which survived the earthquake, was sunk. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards sheds light on this now-obscure yet pivotal period between the Revolutionary and Civil wars, uncovering the era's dramatic geophysical, political, and military upheavals. Feldman paints a vivid picture of how these powerful earthquakes made an impact on every aspect of frontier life—and why similar catastrophic quakes are guaranteed to recur. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards is popular history at its best.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 92 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 1951
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 0395273994

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Minn of the Mississippi by Anonim Pdf

Follows the adventures of Minn, a three-legged snapping turtle, as she slowly makes her way from her birthplace at the headwaters of the Mississippi River to the mouth of river on the Gulf of Mexico.

Author : James L. Penick
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : History
ISBN : 0826203442

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The New Madrid Earthquakes by James L. Penick Pdf

Previously published as: The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812.

Author : Seth Stein
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780231151382

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Disaster Deferred by Seth Stein Pdf

In the winter of 1811-12, a series of large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone-often incorrectly described as the biggest ever to hit the United States-shook the Midwest. Today the federal government ranks the hazard in the Midwest as high as California's and is pressuring communities to undertake expensive preparations for disaster. Disaster Deferred revisits these earthquakes, the legends surrounding them, and the predictions of doom following in their wake. Seth Stein clearly explains the techniques seismologists use to study Midwestern quakes and estimate their danger. Detailing how limited scientific knowledge, bureaucratic instincts, and the media's love of a good story have exaggerated these hazards, Stein calmly debunks the hype surrounding such predictions and encourages the formulation of more sensible, less costly policy.

Author : Josh Sundquist
Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2014-12-23
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 9780316251013

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We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist Pdf

From Paralympic ski racer and YouTube star, Josh Sundquist, comes an always-funny (and sometimes-awkward) memoir about teenage misadventures. The inspiration for the series Best Foot Forward, streaming soon on Apple TV+! When Josh was twenty-five years old, it came to his attention that he never had a girlfriend. At the time, he was actually under the impression that he was in a relationship, so this bit of news came as something of a shock. Why was Josh still single? To find out, he tracked down each of the girls he had tried to date since middle school and asked them straight up: What went wrong? The results of Josh's semi-scientific investigation are in your hands. From a disastrous Putt-Putt date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), and a misguided "grand gesture" at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love—or at least a girlfriend—in all the wrong places. Poignant, relatable, and totally hilarious, this memoir is for anyone who has ever wondered, "Is there something wrong with me?" (Spoiler alert: the answer is no.)

Author : Anonim
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 502 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2004-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0803282974

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Jefferson's Nephews by Anonim Pdf

The brutal axe murder and dismemberment of a Negro slave, committed in 1811 by two brothers, Lilburne and Isham Lewis, whose mother was Thomas Jefferson?s sister and whose father was his first cousin, form the core of this historical detective story and account of frontier life in western Kentucky in the first decades of the nineteenth century. On the night of December 15, 1811, drunk and enraged over the breaking of a pitcher, Lilburne bound his seventeen-year-old slave, George, and, in front of the assembled household?s other slaves, cut off his head. The brothers were indicted for murder, released on bail, and attempted suicide. Boynton Merrill Jr. explores the tragic combination of circumstances and social forces that culminated in this ghastly event: the lawlessness of the frontier settlements, the dehumanizing effects of chattel slavery, and the Lewis family?s history of mental instability and their ever-declining fortunes.

Author : Jodi Picoult
Publisher : Random House Canada
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2018-10-02
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780345813435

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A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult Pdf

The lives of ordinary people become intertwined when a gunman takes hostages at a women's clinic in the #1 New York Times bestselling author's latest. At Mississippi's sole remaining women's reproductive services clinic, a gunman bursts in and takes its patients and staff hostage. The stories that brought these individuals to the clinic vary, from a woman awaiting cancer screening results to a protestor hoping to catch the clinic in a scandal that could be used in a pro-life campaign. Then there is the police hostage negotiator, whose daughter is also trapped inside the facility, and the gunman himself, who has a vendetta to carry out. Meanwhile, across the state, a seventeen-year-old woman lands in the hospital after an attempt to self-terminate her pregnancy and is subsequently charged by the pro-life DA for the murder of her unborn child. They, too, are connected to the events unfolding in the clinic. As the book moves backward in time, each chapter set one hour earlier than the last, we learn how all these people and their stories are unwittingly connected--and that none of these characters' reasons for being where they are at this fateful place and time are exactly what it appears at first glance.

Author : Myron L. Fuller
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 146 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Earthquakes
ISBN : UCR:31210018657542

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The New Madrid Earthquake by Myron L. Fuller Pdf

Author : Nathan Miller
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2010-05-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781439131046

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New World Coming by Nathan Miller Pdf

"To an astonishing extent, the 1920s resemble our own era, at the turn of the twenty-first century; in many ways that decade was a precursor of modern excesses....Much of what we consider contemporary actually began in the Twenties." -- from the Introduction The images of the 1920s have been indelibly imprinted on the American imagination: jazz, bootleggers, flappers, talkies, the Model T Ford, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. But it was also the era of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, widespread social conflict, and the birth of organized crime. Bookended by the easy living of the Jazz Age, when the booze and money flowed seemingly without end, and the crash of '29 that led to breadlines and a level of human suffering not seen since World War I, New World Coming is a lively, entertaining, and all-encompassing chronological account of an age that defined America. Chronicling what he views as the most consequential decade of the past century, Nathan Miller -- an award-winning journalist and five-time Pulitzer nominee -- paints a vivid portrait of the 1920s, focusing on the men and women who shaped that extraordinary time, including, ironically, three of America's most conservative presidents: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In the Twenties, the American people soared higher and fell lower than they ever had before. As unprecedented economic prosperity and sweeping social change dazzled the public, the sensibilities and restrictions of the nineteenth century vanished, and many of the institutions, ideas, and preoccupations of our own age emerged. With scandal, sex, and crime the lifeblood of the tabloids, the contemporary culture of celebrity and sensationalism took root and journalism became popular entertainment. By discarding Victorian idealism and embracing twentieth-century skepticism, America became, for the first time, thoroughly modernized. There is hardly a dimension of our present world, from government to popular culture, that doesn't trace its roots to the 1920s, and few decades are more intriguing or significant today. The first comprehensive view of the era since Only Yesterday, Frederick Lewis Allen's 1931 classic, New World Coming reveals this remarkable age from the vantage point of nearly a century later. It's all here -- the images and the icons, the celebrities and the legends -- in a book that will resonate with history readers, 1920s aficionados, and Americans everywhere.

Author : Lee Sandlin
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2010-10-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307379511

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Wicked River by Lee Sandlin Pdf

A riveting narrative look at one of the most colorful, dangerous, and peculiar places in America's historical landscape: the strange, wonderful, and mysterious Mississippi River of the 19th century. Beginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Wicked River brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. Here, too, is the Mississippi itself: gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable. Masterfully told, Wicked River is an exuberant work of Americana that portrays a forgotten society on the edge of revolutionary change.

Author : Jay Feldman
Publisher : Triumph Books
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2006-04-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781623687151

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Suitcase Sefton and the American Dream by Jay Feldman Pdf

Roving the lonesome highways in search of fresh baseball talent in 1942, New York Yankees scout Mac "Suitcase" Sefton discovers a once-in-a-lifetime talent in Jerry Yamada. The young left-handed pitcher seems poised to take his place among the pantheon of major league pitching greats. However, he's being held indefinitely in a Japanese American internment camp, and he's not even certain that he wants to play professional baseball. Caught behind barbed wire in a camp in Arizona, Jerry, his lovely sister, Annie, and their old-world parents make the best of their confinement while Sefton schemes to find a way to free Yamada and convince him to play for the Yanks. Sefton's interest in Yamada and his family changes from professional to personal when he accepts an offer to join the Yamadas for tea in their primitive quarters in a converted army barrack. Sefton's respect for their strength and the values they hold dear develops and deepens as he begins to see how his own lifestyle contrasts with the Yamadas’. A profound change takes place in him as he discusses freedom and the future with Annie. As a result, the relationships between the scout and the Japanese American family strain and strengthen as they share their cultures and lives. Amid baseball, racism, and hope, Sefton and the Yamadas rediscover the American dream.

Author : Anita Ganeri
Publisher : Scholastic UK
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2019-08-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781407198958

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Horrible Geography: Earth-Shattering Earthquakes (Reloaded) by Anita Ganeri Pdf

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF HORRIBLE GEOGRAPHY! Discover what it takes to be an earthquake expert, learn how to survive when an earthquake hits, and discover how rats and snakes can predict tremors. Filled with hilarious illustrations by Mike Phillips, HORRIBLE GEOGRAPHY is the perfect escapism from miserable maps, rotten rock piles and dire diagrams. Hold tight!