Louisiana State University began in 1860 as a small, all-male military school near Pineville. The institution survived the Civil War, Reconstruction politics, and budgetary difficulties to become a nationally and internationally recognized leader in research and teaching. A devastating fire destroyed the campus in 1869, and the school moved to Baton Rouge, where it has remained. Successive moves to larger campuses in 1887 and 1925 created greater opportunities in academics, student life, and athletics. Academics began with classical and engineering courses. New majors in the arts, literature, engineering, agriculture, and the sciences evolved, along with research in those fields. Student life changed from military regimentation to coeducation and students freedom to live off campus and make their own decisions. Intercollegiate athletics began in 1893 with baseball and football games against Tulane, and the LSU Tigers have since won numerous championships. These evolutionary steps all helped to create Louisianas flagship university.

Nestled on a picturesque spot near the banks of the Mississippi River, Louisiana State University is a photographer's dream. From the red pantile roofs and honey-colored stucco of its Italian Renaissance architecture to the "stately oaks and broad magnolias" hailed in the alma mater, the distinct beauty of the campus is unrivaled. Few, however, realize that the history of the state's flagship university is as colorful as the azaleas that adorn its landscape every spring. Through an entertaining marriage of photographs and text, Under Stately Oaks showcases over 140 years of LSU's past and follows the evolution of the tiny Seminary of Learning of the State of Louisiana, founded near Pineville in 1853, into a university of well over thirty thousand students for the twenty-first century. Thomas F. Ruffin sets the images in historical context and offers fascinating information that will enlighten even the most ardent LSU fan. From the first LSU students in 1860 to the 75th anniversary celebrations of the current Baton Rouge campus in 2001, Under Stately Oaks captures the spirit of the university as never before.

With both an entertainer’s eye and a social scientist’s rigor, Wayne Parent subjects Louisiana’s politics to rational and empirical analysis, seeking and finding coherent reasons for the state’s well-known unique history. He resists resorting to vague hand-waving about “exoticism,” while at the same time he brings to life the juicy stories that illustrate his points. Pa rent’s main theme is that Louisiana’s ethnic mix, natural resources, and geography define a culture that in turn produces its unique political theater. He gives special attention to immigration patterns and Louisiana’s abundant supply of oil and gas, as well as to the fascinating variations in political temperaments in different parts of the state. Most important, he delivers thorough and concise explanations of Louisiana’s unusual legal system, odd election rules, overwrought constitutional history, convoluted voting patterns, and unmatched record of political corruption. In a new epilogue, Parent discusses how the hurricanes of 2005 will affect state politics and politicians as Louisiana struggles to regain its footing in the New South.

Anna Journey’s The Judas Ear resurrects a host of vanished people and places, often through marvelous Ovidian metamorphoses that seem as natural in the gritty tableaux of Richmond, Virginia, as in the luminous shape-shifting vistas of folktale or myth. Journey’s music is lush and visceral, her humor warm and sly, and her sensibility metes out tenderness and grotesquerie in equal parts. Like the ear-shaped mushroom named for a biblical betrayer, the poems in The Judas Ear can shift suddenly from wit to pathos, from seductiveness to danger, with a generosity of vision that is at once wise and revelatory.

The core of the LSU campus is an example of what we can do when we set our sights high. It stands out today as one of the most successful and inspiring examples in the state, one meant by its architect to become an intuitive course in architecture for the students, spreading the influence of its ideals and inspirations across the highlands and lowlands of Louisiana. from The Architecture of LSU When viewed from the technical vantage point of an architect, the discerning eye of an artist, or sociocultural perspective of a historian, the remarkable buildings of Louisiana State University reveal not only a legacy that goes back to the Renaissance, but also a primer of architectural principles that guided the creation of one of the most distinctive academic environments in the United States. Author, professor, and architect J. Michael Desmond traces the university s development from its origins in Pineville, Louisiana, before the Civil War, through its two downtown Baton Rouge locations, to its move to the Williams Gartness Plantation south of the city in the 1920s. The layout of the present campus began with the picturesque vision of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The German-born architect Theodore Link developed and reinterpreted the Olmsted campus plan, producing designs for fourteen of the nineteen core campus buildings. After his untimely death in 1923, the New Orleans firm of Wogan & Bernard completed the buildings in Link s masterplan, which in their formal symmetry and fine classical details reflect the influence of sixteenth-century architect Andrea Palladio. Explosive growth during the 1930s and the impact of the automobile demanded an expansion beyond the campus core. The firm of Weiss, Dreyfous & Seiferth took over as campus architects in 1932, and Baton Rouge landscaper Steele Burden oversaw the live oak plantings for which the LSU campus is now renowned. The essential structure of the campus and its landscape was in place by the time the United States entered World War II. The Architecture of LSU includes a wealth of photographs, plans, drawings, and maps that underscore the contributions of key historical figures and the genealogies of the campus s architecture and planning. By meticulously tracing the origins and evolution of LSU s architectural core and exploring the wider scope of American college campus design, Desmond shows the far-reaching rewards of public environments that integrate natural and constructed elements to meet both practical and aesthetic goals.

Animals mattered in the Civil War. Horses and mules powered the Union and Confederate armies, providing mobility for wagons, pulling artillery pieces, and serving as fighting platforms for cavalrymen. Drafted to support the war effort, horses often died or suffered terrible wounds on the battlefield. Raging diseases also swept through army herds and killed tens of thousands of other equines. In addition to weaponized animals such as horses, pets of all kinds accompanied nearly every regiment during the war. Dogs commonly served as unit mascots and were also used in combat against the enemy. Living and fighting in the natural environment, soldiers often encountered a variety of wild animals. They were pestered by many types of insects, marveled at exotic fish while being transported along the coasts, and took shots at alligators in the swamps along the lower Mississippi River basin. Animal Histories of the Civil War Era charts a path to understanding how the animal world became deeply involved in the most divisive moment in American history. In addition to discussions on the dominant role of horses in the war, one essay describes the use of camels by individuals attempting to spread slavery in the American Southwest in the antebellum period. Another explores how smaller wildlife, including bees and other insects, affected soldiers and were in turn affected by them. One piece focuses on the congressional debate surrounding the creation of a national zoo, while another tells the story of how the famous show horse Beautiful Jim Key and his owner, a former slave, exposed sectional and racial fault lines after the war. Other topics include canines, hogs, vegetarianism, and animals as veterans in post–Civil War America. The contributors to this volume—scholars of animal history and Civil War historians—argue for an animal-centered narrative to complement the human-centered accounts of the war. Animal Histories of the Civil War Era reveals that warfare had a poignant effect on animals. It also argues that animals played a vital role as participants in the most consequential conflict in American history. It is time to recognize and appreciate the animal experience of the Civil War period.