News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu Spring 2004 news releases Public Information home News archive Contact: Christina Chapple Date: x/x/04   Click on image for publication quality photo NEW SLU BOOK EYES HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE FLORIDA PARISHES      HAMMOND – A book by Southeastern Louisiana University historian and author Samuel C. Hyde Jr. is focusing new light on the history and culture of a unique region of Louisiana, the Florida Parishes.      Hyde, director of Southeastern’s Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies and Leon Ford Endowed Chair in Regional Studies, will sign copies of “A Fierce and Fractious Frontier: The Curious Development of Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1699-2000” from 4-5:30 p.m., Sept. 8, at Bayou Booksellers, 204 E. Thomas St. in downtown Hammond.      “A Fierce and Fractious Frontier” is published by Louisiana State University Press.      Hyde, who is also author of “Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1899,” said the book is the product of a conference on the Florida Parishes sponsored by the center in September 2000. Its 10 essays were derived from some of the conference’s most groundbreaking presentations.      “The Florida Parishes arguably experienced the most dramatic pattern of development in Louisiana, if not the entire Gulf South,” Hyde said. “It has endured a tumultuous evolution, including domination by every major power that invaded North America, exclusion from the Louisiana Purchase, insurrection and the establishment of the original Lone Star Republic, and some of the highest rates of rural homicide recorded in American history.”      According to LSU Press, “‘A Fierce and Fractious Frontier’ employs a comprehensive approach supported by provocative groundbreaking research to explain the difficulties of the past and suggest considerations for the future of Louisiana’s Florida Parishes. It will stand as a model for the emerging field of southern subregional studies.”      The book covers aspects of Florida Parishes history from the time of French and Spanish influence through the Civil War and Reconstruction to the modern civil rights movement and environmental controversies. It examines the ethonographic history of the territory during its days as a French colony, the brief era of British rule, slavery under the Spanish regime, and the only major naval battle in the South during the War of 1812.      Additional essays detail the area’s Civil War guerrilla tactics, post-bellum era credit crisis, and ecological transformation caused by pine forest harvesting. The book also considers the demographic changes wrought by black labor employed in the lumber mills of the early 20th century; the challenges confronting a rural, depression-era black community; and recent environmental changes in the parishes that impact economic development.      “This thought-provoking collection turns a revealing light on a neglected corner of the South,” said Stephen V. Ash, author of “When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865.”      “This book,” he said, “will force us to re-think generalizations about the South’s historical experience that we have always accepted as gospel. It should be read and pondered by everyone with a serious interest in the South as it was and is.”      For additional information about “A Fierce and Fractious Frontier,” contact the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, 985-549-2151.