Lee SandlinWicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild

What a wonderful book! In fact, I almost felt as if it had been written for me personally. I say that because it covers so many of my own interests. I have had a fascination with the Mississippi River since I was a young boy and first read Twains works. I am now 62 and, even though I am a voracious reader, Twain is still my favorite author. Being strong and healthy, I still plan to paddle the entire length of the river in my canoe solo. (I was about to leave on the trip several years ago when death in the family necessitated postponing the trip.) But I have no illusions about the romance of the river. I have paddled hundreds of miles of it's length and know it as a dangerous, industrial river although it also has great beauty in places. For me, the trip will be for the challenge - physical and mental.That said, I greatly enjoyed this book because it also covered one of my other interests - history and, in particular, Civil War history. This book gave me new perspectives on such things as Vicksburg during the Civil War. I knew it's history but now I felt almost as if I had experienced it myself. It also has a sad and fascinating chapter about the Sultana, the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the U.S. I knew the facts before but this account brought the whole story to life in a way that no other author that I know of has done before.The entire book flows as smoothly as the river itself and the pages just flew by for me. I tend to be a slow reader because I stop to think about things I read, perhaps look facts up to get more information, etc., but Sandlin's style is so readable and his presentation of the subject is so interesting that I could hardly put the book down. I have a rather large collection of Mississippi River books and Wicked River will now take a prominent place in that collection.As a side note (and I really hesitate to even bring this up) there are some factual errors in the book but they certainly do not amount to much. I'll give one example because it seemed so strange to me that a writer from Illinois with such a deep interest in history could have let such a glaring error slip into the book: On page 67, Sandlin tells of someone going to the (then) capitol of Illinois at Edwardsville. However, Edwardsville was never the Illinois state capitol. (Kaskaskia became the first state capitol in 1818 after having been the territorial seat. Vandalia became the second capitol in 1820. Later, a young Abraham Lincoln introduced a bill to have the capitol moved to Springfield and this was done in 1839. Illinois had three capitols but none of them were Edwardsville.)There are other minor historical errors as well too but they do not detract from the book at all. It was never intended to be for scholars. For example, Sandlin expresses doubt that Mike Fink ever actually existed but the historical record is perfectly clear that he did exist. Of course, many of the myths and legends about him were exaggerations, to put it mildly, or completely fabricated nonsense as was the fashion long ago.I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history or who just likes a rousing good story. I am always reading at least a few books at any given time and this is one of the most entertaining books I have read in a long time. Hats off to Lee Sandlin. Great job!

Clever premise for a book, a fascinating look at early America though the lens of North America's great river.Light and flowing with many fun anecdotes, great summer reading.

I've been wanting to get this book ever since I heard it read on an NPR program from the University of Minnesota. A daily half hour of some great history of the way things really were, as opposed to Mark Twain's story telling some 60 years after the fact. Being from Missouri, and growing up an hour south of St. Louis and a 15 minute drive from "the river", and then attending college at Cape Girardeau, MO, I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River. A vacation trip as a kid to Hannibal after reading (and seeing the movie of) Tom Sawyer, put me in permanent admiration for anything to do with the Mississippi. And just today, (7/20/11) as if it were a sign, I read about the last old tourist river boat that made it's home at the base of the Arch in St. Louis, being moved down river after 100 years of service, to be dismantled for scrap steel. The SS Admiral carried railroad cars across the Mighty Mississippi at Vicksburg in it's first life, then became a day cruise for families and a night hot spot for teens through seniors. Then it bombed as a 6 Flags type entertainment enterprise, and finally as a casino until last year. I spent many a summer night cruising the Mississippi River with my friends in the 70's, dancing to live music and watching the lights go by on the 4 hour cruise. But the whole thing really came to life when I heard the reading of this book on the radio, and I had to have the book. The Mississippi wasn't a place for the weak, the unwise or the faint of heart back in the old days. It was dangerous, and it was wild. Even though I've heard this read, and was glued to the radio every night (like it must have been before t.v.), I can't wait to start this book. This is the real Mississippi story, and the one that I will see as the true story compared to Samuel Clemens' boyhood memory.

A view of the Mississippi River that one is not used to seeing. The Mississippi was not always the romantic place as envisioned by Jerome Kerns and Oxcart Hammerstein in :"Show Boat", or the nostalgic tale of Mark Twain in "Tom Sawyer." My own nostalgic memories of the River are from my days as a student at Washington University in St. Louis (pre Gateway Arch) and gathering samples of Mississippi River water at New Madrid to test for possible pollution introduced from a power plant built on the shores of the River. (There was no detectable effect on water quality due to the nearly infinite dilution by the River.)Today when one observes the Mississippi, he sees the long barges hauling agricultural an the goods for export at New Orleans.the wild river has been tamed to allow it to become a major means of transportation. The romantic days of the River are confined to "Show Boats" and other paddle-wheelers as tourist attractions. The U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers seems to have a constant battle to keep the river open for traffic in fighting the tendency of the River to want to change course. If one looks at modern mopes of the United States it is observed that parts of Illinois are on the west bank of the Mississippi. One has to wonder if taming the river is really feasible or only a pipe dream.An easy and informative read.

If you are interested in how the Mississippi changed America, this is the book for you. Short and concise, yet with a ton of information, you will not be sorry. While it did drag a bit at the end, I learned a lot about how the Mississippi literally contributed to the development of towns, economies and the Civil War. If you want a history book that you will really enjoy reading, pick this one up.

When I started the book I was worried it would just be about ships and navigation but my worry was misplaced. This was a real fascinating read about the history of life on the Mississippi and the crazy characters that populated it. Thoroughly well written and sourced, I'd recommend it to anyone

good book x

This is a beautifully written, comprehensively researched study of the Mississippi. It deals with both the natural and human history of the river. I especially enjoyed the account of the role the river played in the transportation of goods and people. Wicked River is a fine book -- informative and highly entertaining.

Great history on how hard life was not that many years ago. Pretty easy life now...

An interesting journey back in time. The Mississippi is quite a river - and back in the day life was pretty hard (and sometimes quite short) on the river. There is quite a lot about elements of the civil war too - which are interesting. I think I'd like to have read more about the wildlife and countryside of the time - and a little less about the people. That said - it's the people who - on occasion at least - wrote things down...