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"THIS IS NOT
THE BOOK I WAS SUPPOSED TO WRITE. NOR IS IT THE BOOK I SET OUT TO WRITE.
AS IT TURNS OUT, IT IS THE BOOK I WANTED TO WRITE." (from the Preface)
Harvey Jackson III, an Alabamian by birth, taught in Florida and Georgia
before returning to Jacksonville State University where he's currently
Professor and Chair of the History and Foreign Languages. Like many
people who've left a state, he found himself having to explain the
politics, culture, and folklore to clarify Alabama's history to his
students and colleagues. Inside Alabama is a "subjective approach" to
the state's history. Jackson deliberately, determinedly, and
unapologetically took a conversational style while writing "a personal
history of my state."
Born into a family who came into the territory before Alabama was a
state, Jackson's honed his storytelling skills with the intention of
making history come alive. Told with humor, personal anecdotes, and
written as well as oral histories, Jackson discusses the state's
political and economic development from prehistoric times to the
present, beginning with the mound builders and ending with the election
of current governor Bob Riley. Two maps are included to give the reader
a sense of the state's layout, past and present.
Starting with the mound builders, the first known inhabitants of the
land now called Alabama, Jackson organizes his history by topic == Back
When It Belonged to the Indians; Frontier Alabama; Becoming a State;
Antebellum Alabama; Stumbiling toward Secession; Secession and the Civil
War; After the War that Never Ended; A World Made by the Bourbons, For
the Bourbons; White Man's Alabama; Depression and War; Alabama After the
War, "Big Jim" and Beyond; Old Times There Should Not be Forgotten; The
Age of Wallace; The Age of Wallace and After; and To Sum It Up. In the
essay preceding the epilogue, Jackson offers a bibliographic essay
acknowledging his debt to secondary sources. Many of the "cast of
characters" (including Hernando de Soto, Andrew Jackson, Hugo Black,
Martin Luther King, Jr., George Wallace, and Rosa Parks) in Alabama's
history have had exhaustive biographies. Jackson wisely draws on the
best sources in history and literature creating a synergetic hybrid of
his own.
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Pam Kingsbury
- Southern Scribe Reviews
© 2004,
Southern Scribe Reviews, All Rights Reserved
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