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A “lucid, often pithy” history of the eastern Gulf Coast vacation destination by an Alabama native who is “a talented storyteller as well as a scholar” (Washington Times). In The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera, Southern historian Harvey H. Jackson presents a cultural history of the coastal region stretching from Mobile Bay and Gulf Shores, Alabama, to Panama City, Florida—an area known as the “Redneck Riviera.” Jackson chronicles the evolution of the are from the late 1920s, when it was sparsely populated with small fishing villages, through to the devastating BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. With both personal and historical perspectives, Jackson explores the area's development as a middle- and working-class vacation destination following World War II, the building boom of the fifties and sixties, and the emergence of the Spring Break “season.” He tracks the hurricanes that destroyed historic construction, the building boom that brought high-rise condos, and the effects of the 2008 housing market crash. While his major focus is on the social, cultural, and economic development, he also documents the environmental and financial impacts of natural disasters and the politics of beach access and dune and sea turtle protection.

What southerners do, where they go, and what they expect to accomplish in their spare time, their'leisure,'reveals much about their cultural values, class and racial similarities and differences, and historical perspectives. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture offers an authoritative and readable reference to the culture of sports and recreation in the American South, surveying the various activities in which southerners engage in their nonwork hours, as well as attitudes surrounding those activities.Seventy-four thematic essays explore activities from the familiar (porch sitting and fairs) to the essential (football and stock car racing) to the unusual (pool checkers and a sport called'fireballing'). In seventy-seven topical entries, contributors profile major sites associated with recreational activities (such as Dollywood, drive-ins, and the Appalachian Trail) and prominent sports figures (including Althea Gibson, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Hank Aaron). Taken together, the entries provide an engaging look at the ways southerners relax, pass time, celebrate, let loose, and have fun.

An affectionate, irreverent, candid look at the'Heart of Dixie'This book tells Alabama's history in a conversational style with an unapologetically subjective approach. Accessible to general readers and students alike, it recounts the history and politics of a state known for its colorful past, told by one of the state's most noted historians and educators, whose family came to the territory before statehood. A native and resident Alabamian, Harvey Jackson has spent a lifetime discovering and trying to understand his state. Expressing deep love for its people and culture, he is no less critical of its shortcomings. Inside Alabama, as the title implies, gives Jackson's insider perspective on the events and conditions that shaped modern-day Alabama. With humor and candor, he explores the state's cultural, political, and economic development from prehistoric times to the dawning of the new millennium. Mound-builders, Hernando de Soto, William Bartram, Red Sticks, Andy Jackson, Bourbon Democrats, suffragettes, New Dealers, Hugo Black, Martin Luther King Jr., George Wallace, Rosa Parks all play colorful parts in this popular history. By focusing on state politics as the most accessible and tangible expression of these shaping forces, Jackson organizes the fourteen chapters chronologically, artfully explaining why the past is so important today.

In this classic book that records a moment in the history of urban planning, the architect and city planner Harvey H. Kaiser examines the city-building process from the time when a proposal for urban development is first conceived to the early stages of construction. Lysander (near Syracuse) and Gananda and Riverton (both near Rochester). These were brand-new developments and municipalities, and thus quite different from other trends of suburbanization that attached development onto existing municipalities. Step by step, he describes what happened in each of these communities during the presentation of the initial proposal, how parties interacted with each other, and how the climate of the community influenced the actions of the parties. Basing his work on hundreds of interviews, attendance at public meetings, and a review of many articles and documents, Kaiser shows that in each case the emergence of controversy and degree of acceptance was influenced by the developer's leadership, the characteristics of the developer's organization, and the method of presenting the proposal to the public. Kaiser brings to his comparative approach a background in the rough and tumble of day-to-day project management and the development of plans as well as their administration. The Building of Cities is an invaluable resource for developers, architects, public officials, and citizens involved in local government.

The story of the people of the Alabama River system Four streams make up the Alabama River system, the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama. Together they flow for more than 900 miles, through some of the most historic regions of the state. This book looks at the way these streams have shaped the lives of the people who lived along them, and how, in turn, people have used the rivers to their own ends. This is the story of the people of the Alabama River system: the Indians, traders, steamboatmen, passengers, slaves, loggers,'deadheaders', divers, river rats, fishermen, industrial giants, factory workers, business boosters, environmentalists, and those who simply love the rivers because of something that seems to have been a part of them from the first time they saw the water flowing. This is a book for and about these people. They, and the rivers, are the main characters in the story.

A reconsideration of James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785) and his successes and failures in founding and establishing of the colony of Georgia.