In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Book Notes
  • Robert Murray
Romantic Spirits: Nineteenth-Century Paintings of the South from the Johnson Collection. By Estill Curtis Pennington. (Paris, Ky.: Cane Ridge Publishing House, 2012. Pp. 167. $34.95 cloth)

In this book, art historian Estill Curtis Pennington studies thirty-two artists represented in the noted Johnson Collection of southern art in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Spanning the nineteenth century, Pennington examines the cultural, social, and historical forces at work in each artist's life that affected their personal work and the Romantic Movement—defined by its love of heroic individualism, chivalry and honor, sublime nature, and the inevitability of change—as a whole in the South. In addition to nearly seventy-five illustrations and photographs of the artists and their works, artistic devotees and newcomers to the field will find Pennington's extensive annotations and bibliographies of the artists useful for further research.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 21: Art & Architecture. Edited by Judith H. Bonner & Estill Curtis Pennington. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Pp. 504. $49.95 cloth; $27.95 paper; $27.95 ebook)

The twenty-first volume of the acclaimed twenty-four volume series, this installment explores the history, origins, and evolution of art and architecture throughout southern history. Moving from the architecture of colonial Williamsburg to the Newcomb Pottery of Louisiana, the volume is far-ranging, thorough, and traces the artistic endeavors of Southerners from their early attempts at mere mimicry to sophisticated engagement with national and international artistic movements. [End Page 483]

Old Louisville: Exuberant, Elegant, and Alive. By David Dominé. (Savannah, Ga.: Gold Coast Publishing, 2013. Pp. 248. $50.00 cloth)

One of the largest historic preservation districts in the United States, "Old Louisville" encompasses roughly forty-five city blocks south of the Louisville business district. Home to fourteen hundred structures built primarily between 1885 and 1905, the area is famous for its late-Victorian architecture. Old Louisville is an intimate study of fifty different residential designs, ranging from grand mansions to cottages. The book explores the history and architecture of each spotlighted structure and details the work of the current owners to preserve and adapt these buildings in the twenty-first century. Louisville-based author David Dominé's text is accompanied by three hundred illustrations from photographers Franklin and Esther Schmidt. The result is a beautiful book dedicated to the architecture of the neighborhood and the passion and work of its inhabitants to preserve "Old Louisville" for the future.

Kentucky's Frontier Highway: Historical Landscapes along the Maysville Road. By Karl Raitz and Nancy O'Malley. (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2012. Pp. 411. $40.00 cloth; $40.00 ebook)

Completed in 1835 by the Maysville Turnpike Company, the sixty-seven-mile Maysville and Lexington Turnpike which linked the Bluegrass region with the Ohio River was one of Kentucky's first modern roads. Authors Raitz and O'Malley follow the history of the route from the early days of settlement by European-Americans and their slaves who increasingly used that path to reach the Bluegrass. Because of its significance for the political, economic, and cultural development of the region, the Limestone Trace (Maysville's first name was Limestone) became the Limestone Road before further evolving into the Maysville-to-Lexington Turnpike. The heart of the book is the fascinating "landscape biography" of the modern Maysville Road. With literally mile-by-mile detail, the authors trace the cultural, political, geographic, architectural, and social [End Page 484] terrain along the route that both shaped and was, in turn, shaped by the Maysville Road.

Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal. By Joyce M. Barry. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2012. Pp. 190. $21.95 paper)

Standing Our Ground examines women's efforts to end mountaintop removal for coal-mining in West Virginia. Barry's study focuses on the work of Appalachian women in organizations like Coal River Mountain Watch and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, who believe that mountaintop removal threatens their communities and who advocate for alternative energy resources. Barry's work reveals how these women have transformed this into a global, political, and environmental issue and established the foundations of...

pdf

Share