Rate this book

Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild (2010)

by Lee Sandlin(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307378519 (ISBN13: 9780307378514)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Pantheon Books

review 1: Wicked River shares with Old Man River the failure to coalesce into any unified narrative. There just is no reason to read either of these books as a whole. The author here at least infuses his delight in the dark side of the folk history of the river, and the gore (and to a lesser extent sex) spills off the page like a Tarantino movie (Django Unchained, I suppose). But again we have as much a bathroom reader as a history, with no sense of why the place ended up the way it did and few scattered attempts to even paint a portrait of the region.
review 2: " Mizu-ziiipi was an Ojibwe phrase that meant 'very big river'". The very big river was a dangerous place in the early to mid nineteenth century, and this book covers the scene from the New Madrid earthquakes o... moref 1811-1812, revival meetings, river bandits, missionaries, steamboats, and the snags and hazards of the river itself up to shortly after the Civil War. A detailed and different but fascinating slant on American history. less

Download links for: Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild

Advertising