Editor’s Note: We were surprised and flattered to receive this unsolicited review. Thank you, Rick.—eeb)
By Rick Krause
LILBURN, Ga. | The author disdains self-promoting, but this is not about the author so much as it is about the book.
Krause
And yes, he should be lauded for his efforts, and I believe that I am doing that in this recommendation. He’s done an excellent job. But it is about the book, non-fiction obviously, a splendid and exhaustive history of Gwinnett County, that I’d like to discuss.
Yes, it’s a history, but a lot of that is storytelling, which I found so fascinating. One might not think that this could possibly be a “page-turner” like a who-done-it murder mystery, but I found myself following along with the telling of the history eager to read on. often I flipped pages to see what might be ahead.
I never skipped those pages; I pretty much read the entire book. And it is a tome, having more than 580 pages of main text, and together with the first appendix, which actually is similar text contributed by other writers and historians, bringing the text to a total of about 650 pages.
In addition, there are about 175 more pages of Appendix data—facts, figures, statistics, names, places, and such. And it has a thorough index. As such, it is both storytelling and a reference book, much like those must-have encyclopedic books of old, those so common before the Internet.
And don’t think Google or any other search engine could produce this amount of material from the web. The author did not compile this compendium from the internet, because most of it is not there. Instead, he dug through what was, and is mostly paper records, and he interviewed people. Accordingly, the book is quite unique.
That brings me to a point about the medium of the book. I have the paper print book, and after reading, would find it easy to use as an off-the-shelf reference; I don’t think that eBooks can duplicate that. In fact, the tables that are included in the appendices in the printed book could not be formatted for the eBook. That’s missing a lot.
What I found most interesting in reading the book was learning what Gwinnett County first was: largely farming, chiefly cotton, with a few scattered towns. Lawrenceville, became the seat, being the oldest and for years the largest, with a couple of rail lines going through it. I was intrigued regarding the cotton farming because of my interest in the flora of the area and what natural, native plants have survived the plow.
I was fascinated in how Gwinnett County growth proceeded along from some rather fortuitous circumstances. It was northeast of the large Atlanta metropolitan area, and its international airport; it had a lot of open farmland and scattered timber acreage. Then, some visionaries who saw the potential, bought and developed land, some making a fortune, and their giving back to various groups philanthropically. That was in the relatively recent era of the explosive growth in the 1960’s through 1990’s. But even before that, in the late 1800’s, there was the hugely successful tannery industry in Buford.
It’s all in this book. But it’s so much more. Although the book ends in its coverage in 2008, most of what Gwinnett has gone through is covered in the book, as well as the many superlatives—fastest growing, most diverse, best school system, and more. However, Gwinnett’s stumbles and even its dark past are also laid bare in this complete book. It truly is a page-turner; I highly recommend it.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Follow Us