Southeastern professor's book delves into dangerous past
Monday, June 4, 2018
by: Tonya Lowentritt
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University Leon Ford Endowed Chair, Professor
of History, and Director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies Samuel C. Hyde,
Jr. has written a book titled “Pistols and Politics: Feuds, Factions, and the Struggle
for Order in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1935.” The work is a followup to his
book “Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes,
1810-1899.”
A special book release and signing event for the new book is scheduled June 21,
from 3:30 to 5 p.m., at Bayou Booksellers, located at 201A West Thomas Street, in
Hammond. The book is being released through LSU Press.
The book reveals the reasons behind the remarkable levels of historical violence
in Louisiana’s Florida parishes with a special emphasis on the near chaotic conditions
prevailing in “Bloody Tangipahoa.”
“The updated and expanded edition includes four new chapters that deftly bring
the analysis forward to account for the continuation of violence and mayhem in the
region in the early twentieth century,” Hyde said. “The new volume includes original
analysis detailing why such conditions prevailed and why the regional population tolerated
such levels of brutality. It closes with an epilogue that contrasts the peculiar pattern
of development the region endured to the rest of the state and nation and offers an
insightful formulation for a possible pathway to future stability.”
The Journal of Southern History called the book “a model regional study with
important though controversial significance for the wider historiography of the South.”
Books will be available for purchase at the June 21 event. For more information,
contact Bayou Booksellers at 985-542-1124 or visit www.lsupress.org.
