The Arkansas Travelers

Winner, 2020 J.G. Ragsdale Book Award from the Arkansas Historical Association “I reckon stranger you have not been used much to traveling in the woods,” a hunter remarked to Henry Rowe Schoolcraft as he trekked through the Ozark backcountry in late 1818. The ensuing exchange is one of many compelling encounters between Arkansas travelers and settlers depicted in Arkansas Travelers: Geographies of Exploration and Perception, 1804–1834. This book is the first to integrate the stories of four travelers who explored Arkansas during the transformative period between the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and statehood in 1836: William Dunbar, Thomas Nuttall, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and George William Featherstonhaugh. In addition to gathering their tales of treacherous rivers, drunken scoundrels, and repulsive food, historian and geographer Andrew J. Milson explores the impact such travel narratives have had on geographical understandings of Arkansas places. Using the language in each traveler’s narrative, Milson suggests, and the book includes, new maps that trace these perceptions, illustrating not just the lands traversed, but the way travelers experienced and perceived place. By taking a geographical approach to the history of these spaces, Arkansas Travelers offers a deeper understanding—a deeper map—of Arkansas.

Soon after arriving in Sugartree, Arkansas—where she spent many lazy, languid childhood summers—folk art expert Benni Harper discovers that there's something seriously sinister brewing in this usually-peaceful town...

""I reckon stranger you have not been used much to traveling in the woods." This remark from a hunter to Henry Rowe Schoolcraft as he trekked through the Ozark backcountry in late 1818 is one of many entertaining and eye-opening encounters between Arkansas travelers and settlers depicted in this book. Arkansas Travelers: Geographies of Exploration and Perception, 1804-1834, is the first book to capture the fascinating stories of William Dunbar, Thomas Nuttall, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and George William Featherstonhaugh between two covers. These four travelers explored Arkansas during a transformative period between the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and statehood in 1836. Historian and geographer Andrew J. Milson takes readers on an enthralling tour with these travelers as they faced treacherous rivers, drunken scoundrels, and repulsive food. But Milson also cautions that the dramatic imagery, provocative epithets, and frightful anecdotes common in travel narratives too often result in distorted geographical understandings of a place. Milson explains how the language in each of these travelers' published narratives reveals perceptions of places and landscapes that can be mapped. When mapped, travelers' perceptions reveal not just what the traveler said, but where he said it. The resulting maps of these four travelers' perceptions of Arkansas illustrate the places experienced and perceived rather than simply the spaces they traversed. This geographical focus on the history of these spaces yields a deeper understanding - a deeper map - of the Arkansas past"--

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Political Magic is the story of how Bill Clinton's lifelong friends--the Arkansas Travelers--helped the governor of a small state become president of the United States. This engaging and amusing story tells how the Travelers personalized politics and made a difference in Bill Clinton's election and also went to work for Hillary Clinton in her 2008 bid for president.