Deep Water got a great review in the Journal of Southern History. Here are some snippets:
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Thursday, May 05, 2022
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Deep Water: Review
Deep Water just got a lovely review in the Journal of American History by Gregg Andrews. Available here for those with access - some choice snippets:
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Review: Louisiana History
River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain has been reviewed by Daniel Claro in Louisiana History (50:2, Spring 2009). He writes, "this book succeeds in depicting the wonderfully rich literary context that inspired and informed Twain's career."
For a sneak preview of what I'm currently working on, click here.
For a sneak preview of what I'm currently working on, click here.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Review: Journal of Southern History
River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain has been reviewed by James E. Seelye in the Journal of Southern History (May 2010). He writes:
"River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi before Mark Twain by Thomas Ruys Smith is an engaging guide to changing conceptions of the Mississippi River during the antebellum period. Smith's accessible and well-written narrative catalogs the variety of views and commentary about the "American Nile" from a range of individuals, including writers, foreign visitors, and U.S. presidents. One of the work's biggest strengths is the wide spectrum of views that Smith examines [...] Smith uses an impressive array of primary sources by those with firsthand knowledge of or associations with the Mississippi River [...] Cultural historians will find the book to be a solid portrait of antebellum life along the Mississippi River; those interested in historical memory will find the study especially useful."
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Review: Journal of the Early Republic
River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain has been reviewed in the Journal of the Early Republic. Ann Ostendorf writes:
"Thomas Ruys Smith examines the meaning of the river in the antebellum American imagination. Using literary analysis, Smith unpacks the multitude of written and visual representations of the river as it flowed through American culture and consciousness [...] Smith shows how Twain's postbellum fascination with the literary Mississippi emerged out of decades of prior cultural appropriations [...] Smith's extensive uses of primary-source quotations are often delightfully expressive of contemporary worldviews [...] Ultimately, this work is a creative expression of the nineteenth-century American mind and culture through the ways people of that era viewed this iconic natural resource."
Friday, February 12, 2010
Review: Southern Literary Journal
River of Dreams has been reviewed by Scott Romine in the Southern Literary Journal, as part of a longer essay, "The Nature of the South" (42:1, Fall 2009). He writes:
River of Dreams is a rich study, splendidly researched and elegantly written. Although its subtitle and blurb from Louis Budd position it relative to Mark Twain, the book’s true achievement lies in its nuanced account of the “countless [antebellum] stories . . . told in countless ways about the giant river that bisected America” (194). If, as Budd suggests, River of Dreams should be required reading for readers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is equally valuable to students of antebellum culture [...] archivally and synthetically rich—indeed, it is quite dazzling.
You can read the full review here.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Review: American Literary Scholarship
River of Dreams has been mentioned in Alan Gribben's essay on Mark Twain in the 2007 edition of American Literary Scholarship. Here's what he had to say about it:
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Journal of Illinois History
River of Dreams has been reviewed in the Journal of Illinois History by James Hurt. Hurt says:
River of Dreams is an impressive achievement that will interest not only students of the American landscape (or riverscape) and the cultural uses to which it has been put but also "general readers" [...] the book as it stands is an intelligent, original, and imaginative contribution to American cultural studies.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies
River of Dreams has been reviewed by Luther Brown in Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies. He writes: "This is a valuable book and should be in the collections of anyone concerned with re-presenting place, early Americana, The River, and certainly Mark Twain."
Click for bigger images:
Click for bigger images:
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Booklist Review
Writing in Booklist (May 1, 2007), the publication of the American Library Association, George Cohen described River of Dreams as "a lively and wide-ranging account of this majestic body of water."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)