Book Giveaway - "Alabama Illustrated Engravings"

Turner Publishing has released another amazing book, and they've sent me a copy to give away to one of you!! It is called Alabama Illustrated Engravings from 19th Century Newspapers.

This book walks through a fascinating period of history where there was no Twitter, Internet, 24 Hour News Channels, or even a way to economically publish photographs to get the news out to the public. So as an alternative, publishers employed artists to draw and engrave images of places, events and people.

This practice was prevalent from the 1850's to the 1890's, and there were little more than 250 of these images published of events and people in Alabama. This book is a compilation of the most captivating and detailed images of Alabama that were published.

But they don't just provide the images - they have background information and stories to go with each one, and the combination provides a riveting relay of Alabama history during that time period.

I was immediately sucked in, reading about such events as a jousting tournament that happened at the Annual fair, the inauguration of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis, many engravings and gripping stories about the Civil War, and images from the early industrial days of Birmingham.

If you want more information on this book, the Authors, James L Baggett and Kelsey Scouten Bates, will be in Birmingham doing two book signings and speaking engagements - August 29th from 1-3pm at Barnes and Noble at the Summit, and August 31st from 4-6pm at The Alabama Booksmith!

If you would like to be entered to win a copy of this book, simply comment on this post. The contest is open until Monday, September 7th, and a winner will be randomly drawn and announced on Tuesday, September 8th.