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Back to topA History of the Ozarks, Volume 2: The Conflicted Ozarks (Paperback)
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Description
The Ozarks of the mid-1800s was a land of divisions. The uplands and its people inhabited a geographic and cultural borderland straddling Midwest and west, North and South, frontier and civilization, and secessionist and Unionist. As civil war raged across the region, neighbor turned against neighbor, unleashing a generation of animus and violence that lasted long after 1865. The second volume of Brooks Blevins's history begins with the region's distinctive relationship to slavery. Largely unsuitable for plantation farming, the Ozarks used enslaved persons on a smaller scale or, in some places, not at all. Blevins moves on to the devastating Civil War years where the dehumanizing, personal nature of Ozark conflict was made uglier by the predations of marching armies and criminal gangs. Blending personal stories with a wide narrative scope, he examines how civilians and soldiers alike experienced the war, from brutal partisan warfare to ill-advised refugee policies to women's struggles to safeguard farms and stay alive in an atmosphere of constant danger. The war stunted the region's growth, delaying the development of Ozarks society and the processes of physical, economic, and social reconstruction. More and more, striving uplanders dedicated to modernization fought an image of the Ozarks as a land of mountaineers and hillbillies hostile to the idea of progress. Yet the dawn of the twentieth century saw the uplands emerge as an increasingly uniform culture forged, for better and worse, in the tumult of a conflicted era.
About the Author
Brooks Blevins is the Noel Boyd Professor of Ozarks Studies at Missouri State University. He is the author or editor of nine books, including A History of the Ozarks, Volume 1: The Old Ozarks; Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South; and Arkansas, Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State.
Praise For…
Winner, J. G. Ragsdale Book Award in Arkansas History, Arkansas Historical Association, 2021
"Conflicted is certainly the appropriate term to capture the content and outlook of this second volume of the history of the Ozarks. . . . This engaging volume contains a wealth of local stories and personalities, while closing with a heartfelt epilogue hoping to revive the region's reputation with a literary (even romantic) flourish, referencing The Shepherd of the Hills (1907)." --Journal of American History
"A History of the Ozarks will undoubtedly become the standard history of that upland region for years to come." --Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
"A well-researched and detailed account of the violent life of the Ozarks during and after the Civil War." --St. Louis Post Dispatch
"With purpose, wit, and clarity, Blevins has produced an excellent introduction to the region's history." --Missouri Historical Review
"No states suffered the Uncivil War more than Missouri and Arkansas, and no region of these states witnessed the fullest measure of incivility than the Ozarks. Brooks Blevins's masterful second volume offers a fine-grain narrative of people who might be unfamiliar to many."—Silas Turnbo, William Monks, Sempronius H. Boyd, Alf Bolin, William T. Leeper, Lina Hermann, and the Bald Knobbers
"Brooks Blevins’s second volume of A History of the Ozarks is the work of a premier historian and a master storyteller. Whether the topic is Civil War guerrillas or postwar Bald Knobbers, Blevins peels away the layers of myth and legend to reveal the region’s heritage and history in all its complexity. Highly recommended for both the scholar and the general reader."--William Garrett Piston, coauthor of Wilson’s Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It
"Blevins draws on an impressive array of sources to craft a deeply researched story that he tells with insight and verve. . . . The end result is a significant contribution that surely will serve as the standard telling of the era for many years to come." --Arkansas Historical Quarterly
"With a detailed and captivating narrative, Blevins strategically inserts scholarly research to underscore his points. . . . Civil War historians and regional scholars alike will enjoy his second volume on the history of the Ozarks." --Journal of Southern History
"Blevins's work is an important addition to the scholarship on the region and a much needed detailed look at the antebellum years, the Civil War, and Radical Reconstruction in the Ozark Mountain region of Missouri and Arkansas." --Arkansas Review
"In five tightly organized chapters, Blevins weaves the history of the Ozarks from roughly the beginning of the Civil War through the so-called Long Reconstruction period." --Kansas History