On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces at Fort Johnson fired upon Federal-occupied Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, etching James Island's name in American history as the starting place of the War Between the States. The island was a battleground for war skirmishes, live oak-laden property that housed antebellum plantations, fertile soil that yielded sea island cotton, precious land that enslaved so many, and a rural planting community existing in the shadow of Charleston. More than this, though, James Island was and is a beloved home to generations of proud families and individuals. This South Carolina sea island, which once flourished and folded under the bondage of slavery, is now a place where all races live and celebrate its rich heritage. The Gullah culture and language thrive and are treasured here, as are the Southern traditions of the original planters and their descendants.

This South Carolina sea island, which once flourished and folded under the bondage of slavery, is now a place where all races live and celebrate its rich heritage. Today, James Island is a bustling community seven miles west of Charleston, South Carolina, but the island's past wasn't always something you'd see on a billboard to entice you to visit. Beginning in the 18th century, James Island was the destination for hundreds of enslaved Africans who were tortured with unimaginable hardships while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In James Island: Stories from Slave Descendants, Eugene Frazier Sr. compiles narrative interviews from firsthand accounts with slaves and their descendants, as well as the descendants of plantation owners. The stories Frazier gathered give us a singular perspective on the lives of African Americans from 1732-1950, following the James Island community for more than 130 years of slavery to decades of sharecropping and farming while slavery's long shadow survived in segregation. An excellent resource for historians, teachers or those interested in the journey from slavery to integration, James Island: Stories from Slave Descendants will be an enlightening and meaningful addition to any library.

This South Carolina island, which once flourished and folded under the bondage of slavery, is now a place where all races live and celebrate its rich heritage. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces at Fort Johnson fired upon Federal-occupied Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, etching James Island's name in American history as the starting place of the War Between the States. Before the island was a battleground for war skirmishes, antebellum plantations lay nestled between the thickets of live oaks; fertile soil yielded sea island cotton that required the labor of thousands of enslaved people, and a rural planting community existed in the shadow of nearby Charleston. More than this, though, James Island was and is a beloved home to generations of proud families and individuals. The Gullah culture and language, derived from the original West Africans brought in bondage to the Carolina coast, thrive and are treasured here, and James Island is a beautiful community welcoming to everyone.

In this engaging volume, local historian Douglas Bostick reveals the unacknowledged history of the second community in South Carolina, settled in 1671. Whether investigating prehistoric clues about Native American life before European settlement, detailing the history of agriculture and the reign of King Cotton, following armies from multiple wars or chronicling the triumph of equality on the greens of Charleston's Municipal Golf Course, Bostick tells the story of James Island as only a native son can. Join Bostick as he brings this small jewel of an island out of Charleston's shadow and into the light of its own rich, historic assets.

“The essential public good that Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and now Cameron sell is not power stations, or trains, or hospitals. It’s the public itself. it’s us.” In a little over a generation the bones and sinews of the British economy – rail, energy, water, postal services, municipal housing – have been sold to remote, unaccountable private owners, often from overseas. In a series of brilliant portraits the award-winning novelist and journalist James Meek shows how Britain’s common wealth became private, and the impact it has had on us all: from the growing shortage of housing to spiralling energy bills. Meek explores the human stories behind the incremental privatization of the nation over the last three decades. He shows how, as our national assets are sold, ordinary citizens are handed over to private tax-gatherers, and the greatest burden of taxes shifts to the poorest. In the end, it is not only public enterprises that have become private property, but we ourselves. Urgent, powerfully written and deeply moving, this is a passionate anatomy of the state of the nation: of what we have lost and what losing it cost us – the rent we must pay to exist on this private island.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Lost Island" by James Norman Hall. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.