Journey on the James

Released on by Earl Swift
preview-18

  • Journey on the James Book Detail

  • Author : Earl Swift
  • Release Date : 2014-12-19
  • Publisher : University of Virginia Press
  • Genre : History
  • Pages : 355
  • ISBN 13 : 0813937213
  • File Size : 79,79 MB
DOWNLOAD BOOK

Journey on the James by Earl Swift PDF Summary

Book Description: From its beginnings as a trickle of icy water in Virginia's northwest corner to its miles-wide mouth at Hampton Roads, the James River has witnessed more recorded history than any other feature of the American landscape -- as home to the continent's first successful English settlement, highway for Native Americans and early colonists, battleground in the Revolution and the Civil War, and birthplace of America's twentieth-century navy. In 1998, restless in his job as a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Earl Swift landed an assignment traveling the entire length of the James. He hadn't been in a canoe since his days as a Boy Scout, and he knew that the river boasts whitewater, not to mention man-made obstacles, to challenge even experienced paddlers. But reinforced by Pilot photographer Ian Martin and a lot of freeze-dried food and beer, Swift set out to immerse himself -- he hoped not literally -- in the river and its history. What Swift survived to bring us is this engrossing chronicle of three weeks in a fourteen-foot plastic canoe and four hundred years in the life of Virginia. Fueled by humor and a dauntless curiosity about the land, buildings, and people on the banks, and anchored by his sidekick Martin -- whose photographs accompany the text -- Swift points his bow through the ghosts of a frontier past, past Confederate forts and POW camps, antebellum mills, ruined canals, vanished towns, and effluent-spewing industry. Along the banks, lonely meadowlands alternate with suburbs and power plants, marinas and the gleaming skyscrapers of Richmond's New South downtown. Enduring dunkings, wolf spiders, near-arrest, channel fever, and twenty-knot winds, Swift makes it to the Chesapeake Bay. Readers who accompany him through his Journey on the James will come away with the accumulated pleasure, if not the bruises and mud, of four hundred miles of adventure and history in the life of one of America's great watersheds.

Disclaimer: www.yourbookbest.com does not own Journey on the James books pdf, neither created or scanned. We just provide the link that is already available on the internet, public domain and in Google Drive. If any way it violates the law or has any issues, then kindly mail us via contact us page to request the removal of the link.

Journey on the James

Journey on the James

File Size : 52,52 MB
Total View : 7200 Views
DOWNLOAD

From its beginnings as a trickle of icy water in Virginia's northwest corner to its miles-wide mouth at Hampton Roads, the James River has witnessed more record

Auto Biography

Auto Biography

File Size : 33,33 MB
Total View : 7308 Views
DOWNLOAD

A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw auto dealer as he

The Big Roads

The Big Roads

File Size : 99,99 MB
Total View : 3958 Views
DOWNLOAD

Discover the twists and turns of one of America’s great infrastructure projects with this “engrossing history of the creation of the U.S. interstate system�

Across the Airless Wilds

Across the Airless Wilds

File Size : 31,31 MB
Total View : 2584 Views
DOWNLOAD

"THRILLING. ... Up-end[s] the Apollo narrative entirely." —The Times (London) A "brilliantly observed" (Newsweek) and "endlessly fascinating" (WSJ) rediscover

The Tangierman's Lament

The Tangierman's Lament

File Size : 57,57 MB
Total View : 774 Views
DOWNLOAD

Go where the story is--that’s one tenet of journalism Earl Swift has had little trouble living up to. In two decades of covering the commonwealth, Swift has h