University of Alabama Press

Civil War Alabama

Author: Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr.   

Foreword by G. Ward Hobbs

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Pages: 435

Price: $59.95 (Hardcover)

Tuscaloosa attorney Chris McIlwain, for 25 years, has been practicing law all day and in the evenings and weekends researching the Civil War in Alabama. He read journals and diaries, the military records and, most especially, the many, many newspapers published all over Alabama during the conflict.

The result of this Herculean effort is, so far, three books.

“The Road South: Personal Stories of the Freedom Riders”

Author: B. J. Hollars  

Publisher: The University of Alabama Press

Pages: 171

Price: $24.95 (Hardcover)

B.J. Hollars is an Indiana boy who took the MFA here at the University and since has pursued his teaching career in Wisconsin at Eau Claire.

But Alabama history and culture, as is often the case with northerners, struck him as exotic, seized his imagination and has given him a lifetime of material.

“1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace”

Author: Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Sr.   

Publisher: University of Alabama Press  

Pages: 276

Price: $59.95 (Cloth)

Christopher McIlwain, a practicing Tuscaloosa attorney, has been researching Alabama in the Civil War for over 25 years.

He has gone deeply into such primary sources as letters, diaries, drafts of legislation before the Alabama legislature and, especially, the editorial pages of the many Alabama newspapers during the years 1861-1865.

“Beautiful War: Studies in a Dreadful Fascination”

Author: Philip D. Beidler                                                                                     

Pages: 173

Price: $34.95 (Hardcover)

Although Beidler’s last book, “The Island Called Paradise,” is a collection of essays about Cuba, America’s wars have been his main concern from the beginning of his career. Beidler devoted an entire book to discussions of Vietnam War literature, and several collections discuss World War II, “The Good War,” and its cultural aftermath.

“Visions of the Black Belt: A Cultural Survey of the Heart of Alabama”

Author: Robin McDonald and Valerie Pope Burnes

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Pages: 242

Price: $39.95 (Hardcover)

“Visions of the Black Belt” is a gorgeous, oversized coffee table book and it will, properly, be bought for the photos, but before talking about the photography, let me urge people to be sure to read the text.

“Captain Billy’s Troopers: A Writer’s Life”

Author: William Cobb

Publisher: The University of Alabama Press   

Pages: 205

Price: $34.95 (Cloth)

Only a small percentage of alcoholics are writers but the public may be forgiven for thinking a large percentage of writers are alcoholics. After all, writers write their memoirs and are written about, and a number of America’s most famous writers—Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Neill, to name just a few—were also famous drinkers.

“Among the Swamp People : Life in Alabama’s Mobile-Tensaw Delta”

Author: Watt Key; Illustrations by Kelan Mercer

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Pages: 198

Price: $29.95 (Cloth)

“Swamp People” is a combination of memoir, nature writing and personal essay. Key, raised in Point Clear, on Mobile Bay, writes of his nearly life-long fascination with the Mobile-Tensaw Delta at the north end of the bay.