Customer Reviews

Arkansas, 1800-1860: Remote and Restless (Histories of Arkansas)

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Arkansas 1800-1860: Remote and Restless is a great history of early Arkansas by Charles Bolton. This entry in the Histories of Arkansas series takes the reader from early American settlement through Arkansas' antebellum period.

Although we think of the frontier as being the Wild West, Arkansas was very much the frontier during the period covered in this book. Bolton does a fine job of capturing the spirit of this frontier society, from hopeful settlers to the elite planters and politicians that eventually led Arkansas into the Confederacy and the Civil War. Particularly interesting are descriptions of the state's bank failures, which crippled early finance in the state, the Family or Dynasty that ruled Arkansas politics through most of the antebellum period, and how Arkansas was on the cusp of an economic boom just as the Civil War arrived and swept it all away.

This a must-read for those wanting to learn more about early Arkansas.

The information in this book is well thought out and seems to be mostly complete. The author seeks to include as much data as possible pertaining to the various topics on early Arkansas history. This therein lies the rub. Though much data is included, the author fails to adequately crunch the numbers down so they are readable. The barrage of statistics in this book makes many of the chapters difficult to read. The other aspect of this book that lowers its rating is the fact that the author seems to feel the need to impress his colleagues more than provide a readable book for the public. Word choice throughout the book seems to rely heavily on a thesaurus and less on common language. Though I slogged through the book and learned a fair amount from it. I have concluded that there is a market for a book on the same topic that is more readable.