"When we reflect on our nation's history, the American Revolution can feel almost like a foregone conclusion. In reality, the first weeks of the war were much more tenuous, and a fractured and ragtag group of colonial militias had to coalesce to have even the slimmest chance of toppling the mighty British Army.

'In 1892, Bryan Mealer's great-grandfather leaves the Georgia mountains and heads west into Texas. But his luck soon runs out. Beset by drought, the family loses their farm just as the dead pastures around them give way to one of the biggest oil booms in American history. They eventually settle in the small town of Big Spring, where fast fortunes are being made from its own reserves of oil. For the next two generations, the Mealers live on the margins...

In Virginia, the Union army suffered two setbacks along the Rappahannock. Lee threw back Burnside's costly frontal assaults at Fredericksburg on December 13. The talented, ambitious Joseph Hooker soon took command. He planned a brilliant offensive that began well at the end of April 1863, but Lee and Jackson had other plans.

Showers of blood, however dreadful, were not news. Pliny, Cicero, Livy, and Plutarch mentioned rains of blood and flesh. Zeus makes it rain blood, 'as a portent of slaughter,' in Homer's Iliad."This article appears in the Spring 2012 issue of Southern Cultures. The full issue is also available as an ebook.Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by...

"Compared to Gettysburg or the Ardennes, the battle for Pork Chop Hill is hardly more than a skirmish. But to the men of the 7th Infantry Division, it contained all the heroism and sacrifice which characterized the bloody mountain fighting of the Korean War. The action began on April 16, 1953 and lasted 48 hours. Faced with human wave attacks by a determined and skillful Red Chinese force many times its size, the defenders fought a brutal hand to...

Presents a guide to seeds that explains their importance to nature and humanity, describing their role in such events as the Age of Discovery, the American Civil War, and the Industrial Revolution.

A biologist presents the natural history of feathers, applying the findings of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and art historians to answer questions about the origin of feathers, their evolution, and their uses throughout the ages.