"The Southern Plantation: A Study in the Development and the Accuracy of a Tradition" by Francis Pendleton Gaines is a scholarly exploration of the southern plantation system, examining its evolution, cultural significance, and the myths that have shaped its historical legacy. Originally published in 1924, this book provides a nuanced analysis of one of the most iconic and controversial institutions in American history. Francis Pendleton Gaines,...

"A comic opera…tuneful, playful." -New York Times Book Review In Shiver-de-Freeze, Louisiana (population 375), friends and family have gathered for the impending nuptials of Grisham Loudermilk and Ariane Thevenot. This will be no ordinary wedding-not when Boudou Fontana, the last of the star-crossed Fontana clan, the conjoined twins Tous-les-Doux, and a host of others are involved. From a writer of rare grace and comic genius comes a "warm, sad,...

A history of the river with firsthand accounts and photographs of the 1927 flood. Saxon's description of the discovery, exploration, and settlement of the delta combined with his collection of personal accounts makes for a compelling blend of personal, political, geographical, and historical facts. The book, considered as much a documentation of the disaster as an impassioned plea for help, demonstrates just how volatile an environment the Mississippi...

Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...

"The Kitchen House continues the story of Jamie Pyke, son of both a slave and master of Tall Oakes, whose deadly secret compels him to take a treacherous journey through the Underground Railroad ... This ... stand-alone novel opens in 1830, and Jamie, who fled from the Virginian plantation he once called home, is passing in Philadelphia society as a wealthy white silversmith. After many years of striving, Jamie has achieved acclaim and security, only...

"A groundbreaking historical novel from a heralded author that explores the seldom discussed Puerto Rican Atlantic Slave Trade. At a time when importing humans from Africa had been prohibited by the Spanish Crown, Pola and other slave women provide their master with babies who are immediately taken away and sold on the auction block. Her serial rapes by a number of men are routine and often provided entertainment for the master and his friends. Understandably...

"The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible"--Provided by publisher.

"Master of the Mountain," Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book--based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers--opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world."-- Publisher's description.

“Remembering Enslavement” explores plantation museums as sites for contesting and reforming public interpretations of slavery in the American South. Emerging out of a three-year National Science Foundation grant (2014—17), the book turns a critical eye toward the growing inclusion of the formerly enslaved within these museums, specifically examining advances but also continuing inequalities in how they narrate and memorialize the formerly enslaved. Using...

Winner of both the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Polished Hoe is acclaimed author Austin Clarke's masterpiece. On a Caribbean island in the 1950s, elderly Mary Gertrude Mathilda commits murder. As she explains herself to police, her story exposes the ugly underbelly of life on Caribbean plantations, with its slavery and brutality.