Larry Jack arrives home from the Korean War with a divorce and no prospects for a future he now assumes will be lonely. As luck would have it, however, with his discharge paper still in hand, Larry Jack is offered the job of a lifetime as a revenuer in his homeland of Arkansas County, Arkansas. He is placed in charge of investigating bootleggers and possible drug dealers in the regionand even though hes a native, he does not receive the warmest of welcomes. Larry Jacks Arkansas is a bit wild; there are vicious feuds, rough-and-tumble fighting in the honky-tonks, and shootouts on the town square. Despite their personal differences, though, the people of the bayou have one thing in common: distaste for authority figures, which makes his job difficult. His life gets even more interesting when he encounters an old flame by the name of Mary Ann. Meanwhile, it soon becomes apparent in his investigation that Larry Jack isnt just dealing with local crooks. A crime syndicate is behind the drug-dealing, and in order to convict Larry Jack will have to risk his own life against not only guns but also water moccasins, alligators, and bears. With Mary Ann at his side, he might be able to navigate the bayou, but how will he bring these criminals to justice without ending up with a bullet in the back?

As the traditional British folk song that the rock group Traffic made famous in the 1970s and that lends its name to this book's title demonstrates, the battle against John Barleycorn was a losing one: "And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl / Proved the strongest man at last." Ben Johnson's sweeping, highly readable, and extensively illustrated "spirited" overview of Arkansas's efforts to regulate and halt the consumption of alcohol reveals much about the texture of life and politics in the state--and country--as Arkansas grappled with strong opinions on both sides. After early attempts to keep drink from the American Indians during the colonial period, temperance groups' efforts switched to antebellum towns and middle-class citizens. After the Civil War new federal taxes on whiskey production led to violence between revenue agents and moonshiners, and the state joined the growing national movement against saloons that culminated in 1915 when the legislature approved a measure to halt the sale, manufacture, and distribution of alcohol--including that of Arkansas's substantial wine industry. The state supported national prohibition, but people became disillusioned with the widespread violations of the law. However, the state didn't repeal its own prohibition law until a fiscal crisis in 1935 required it in order to raise revenue. The new law only authorized retail liquor stores, not the return of taverns or bars. A final effort to restore laws against John Barleycorn in 1950 was rebuffed by voters. Still, there are a number of counties in Arkansas that remain dry and disputes over the granting of private club licenses continue to make news.

In 1837 Representative Joseph J. Anthony stabs the speaker of the house to death during a debate about wolf pelts. In 1899 Hot Springs police shoot it out with the county sheriffs over control of illegal gambling. In 1974 President Richard Nixon resigns in part due to the outspokenness of Pine Bluff native Martha Mitchell. In this special print project of the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, legendary cartoonist Ron Wolfe brings these and many other stories to life. Accompanied by selected entries from the encyclopedia, Wolfe’s cartoons highlight the oddities and absurdities of our state’s history. Seriously, you couldn’t make up this stuff.

This study examines the phenomenon of peasant resistance in westernMaharashtra with special reference to the years 1875-1947. It investigates thetranformation of agrarian society in this region through a sociological analysisof specific cases of peasant resistance.

Told by Terry Lee Kincaid III, or Little T, we follow several influential people in his life, his great-granddaddy Billy Ray Kincaid. His granddaddy, Big T (Terry Lee Benning Kincaid), and his father, Terry Lee Kincaid Jr. He follows the lives of another group of influential people in his life, the Spicers: James Spicer, Alberta Spicer, and Sonny Spicer. The Spicers and the Kincaids lived together in Kincaid, Georgia. They were one. They were family.

Most Americans think of the Civil War as a series of dramatic clashes between massive armies led by romantic-seeming leaders. But in the Appalachian communities of North Georgia, things were very different. Focusing on Fannin and Lumpkin counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains along Georgia’s northern border, A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South argues for a more localized, idiosyncratic understanding of this momentous period in our nation’s history. The book reveals that, for many participants, this war was fought less for abstract ideological causes than for reasons tied to home, family, friends, and community. Making use of a large trove of letters, diaries, interviews, government documents, and sociological data, Jonathan Dean Sarris brings to life a previously obscured version of our nation’s most divisive and destructive war. From the outset, the prospect of secession and war divided Georgia’s mountain communities along the lines of race and religion, and war itself only heightened these tensions. As the Confederate government began to draft men into the army and seize supplies from farmers, many mountaineers became more disaffected still. They banded together in armed squads, fighting off Confederate soldiers, state militia, and their own pro-Confederate neighbors. A local civil war ensued, with each side seeing the other as a threat to law, order, and community itself. In this very personal conflict, both factions came to dehumanize their enemies and use methods that shocked even seasoned soldiers with their savagery. But when the war was over in 1865, each faction sought to sanitize the past and integrate its stories into the national myths later popularized about the Civil War. By arguing that the reason for choosing sides had more to do with local concerns than with competing ideologies or social or political visions, Sarris adds a much-needed complication to the question of why men fought in the Civil War.