Steamboats and the cotton economy : river trade in the Yazoo-Mississippi delta /

From 1830 to 1934, steamboats brought the delta of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers into communication with the outside world. Cotton flowed out; manufactured goods flowed in; people and news traveled in every direction. Owens has produced here a chronicle of steamboating on this complex network of waterways lying east of the Lower Mississippi. The book is filled with descriptive detail about boats, landings, operators, owners, misfortunes, and wrecks. At the center of the book is a three-chapter history of Sherman H. Parisot and the "P. Line," which dominated the "golden age of Yazoo steamboating." Of particular interest to local historians or steamboat specialists, detailed appendixes list Yazoo boats, wrecks, river landings, and shipping statistics. Casual readers may find that too much detail (or too little "plot") burdens the narrative chapters, while serious historians will regret that so little of the "cotton economy" shines through. Like the cotton boats pictured in a photo section, Owens's argument and story seem overwhelmed by bales and bales of information. -J. L. Larson, Purdue University