Book details history of North Mississippi

Written by UGA professor emeritus of English Hubert McAlexander, From the Chickasaw Cession to Yoknapatawpha offers glimpses of North Mississippi from the time the Chickasaws, led by powerful mixed-blood families, were forced by give up the last of their Mississippi lands and move west.

Readers learn about settlers flocking to the state’s homeland—billed as cotton’s last empire—buying land, building and establishing institutions. The 1850s ushered in a golden age of great prosperity that ended with a destructive war.

After the war, a culture reformed itself. Throughout the decades, a literary strain was developing.

Under the influence of this peculiar history and the problems of race emerged a great genius and his creation—Yoknapatawpha.