The wheels of our nation’s book review machinery turn very slowly, and only now has the first proper review of my new book, Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves, been published.
It was worth the wait. Â My old friend and colleague, Harold Henderson, whom older readers of this paper will remember from his days at IT. Harold now is a certified genealogist and practices the craft of family history after a career as a Chicago journalist.Â
He talked about the book on his blog, Midwestern Microhistory–a must-read, by the way, for anyone pursuing geneaological research in Illinois and adjacent states.
Harold sums up:Â
Those of us with ties to the 44 or so Illinois counties lying between I-70 and I-80 have received a gift, but we don’t all know it yet. Corn Kings & One-Horse Thieves: A Plain-Spoken History of Mid-Illinois, by my friend and onetime colleague James Krohe Jr., comes closer to unriddling the riddle of the Midwest than anything else I’ve seen.. . .
For those with roots south of the Quad Cities and north of Alton, this is a must-have. Others may find it a model for the kind of detailed and honest history other states and regions could use.
Very nice to hear. Skeptical readers, of course, will want to buy a copy to decide for themselves.
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2017.
