CAMDEN: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA BACKCOUNTRY represents a unique longitudinal study of 25 years of a single site from the colonial era. It uses the distinctive methodology of historical archaeology to investigate behavior associated with a temporal process of change, thereby illuminating the adaptive behavior of colonists. It is also an important study methodologically because it employs a systematic approach to the investigation of large, complex sites using a combination of documentary and material evidence.

The South Carolina Historical Marker Program, established in 1936, has approved the installation of more than 1,700 interpretive plaques, each highlighting how places both grand and unassuming have played important roles in the history of the Palmetto State. These roadside markers identify and interpret places valuable for understanding South Carolina's past, including sites of consequential events and buildings, structures, or other resources significant for their design or their association with institutions or individuals prominent in local, state, or national history. This volume includes a concise history of the South Carolina Historical Marker Program and an overview of the marker application process. For those interested in specific historic periods or themes, the volume features condensed lists of markers associated with broader topics such as the American Revolution, African American history, women's history, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. While the program is administered by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, most markers are proposed by local organizations that serve as a marker's official sponsor, paying its cost and assuming responsibility for its upkeep. In that sense, this inventory is a record not just of places and subjects that the state has deemed worthy of acknowledgment, but of those that South Carolinians themselves have worked to enshrine.

This comprehensive history of the central northern South Carolina county provides a survey of the place and its people from the burial mounds of its earliest Native American inhabitants through the infrastructure and technology of the twenty-first century. Special attention is paid to the role of the county and its inhabitants during key periods in American history from its post-Revolutionary economic development and its reliance on slave labor, to its distinction as the birthplace of numerous Confederate officers and role during and after World War II as a regional industrial center. The work contains over eighty black and white images. Joan and Glen Inabinet are retired high school teachers and local historians. Both are former presidents of the Kershaw County Historical Society. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).