Search results for ""Author John Shelton""

R.J. Mitchell was virtually self-taught and almost all his aircraft were slow-flying seaplanes. The story of how this man from the land-locked Midlands, apprenticed to a locomotive works, became responsible for the Spitfire is a great tale in itself. This detailed book tells us how Mitchell learned his trade – contributing to the production of the cumbersome Nighthawk (designed to combat the German Zeppelin threat) and gradually coming to produce record-breaking racing floatplanes that won outright the prestigious international Schneider Trophy. Mitchell was thus well placed to design a high-speed aircraft when war was imminent; however, as John K. Shelton reveals, the production of the famous fighter was by no means a certainty and its vital contribution to winning the Battle of Britain was ‘a very close run thing’.

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In a lively and amusing style, John Shelton Reed traces the history of southern barbecue from its roots in the sixteenth-century Caribbean, showing how this technique of cooking meat established itself in the coastal South and spread inland from there.

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Celebrates a southern culinary tradition forged in coals and smoke. In a lively and amusing style, John Shelton Reed traces the history of southern barbecue from its roots in the sixteenth-century Caribbean, showing how this technique of cooking meat established itself in the coastal South and spread inland from there.

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R. J. Mitchell at Supermarine is the definitive account of the life of Britain’s best-known aeronautical engineer. Shelton calls upon unpublished letters, extensive press accounts, and updated material from his previous publications, concentrating particularly on the harsh conditions of Mitchell’s apprentice years, the precarious state of the aircraft firm he joined, and moments of good fortune of which he took advantage. He was a ‘chancer’ as well as a methodical developer of, mainly, slow flying seaplanes. Mitchell’s progress from draughtsman, with no formal training in aeronautical design, to internationally known chief designer is charted through a chronological study of his designs, revealing a formidable work ethic with a complex personality that combined ‘dreams and common sense’. It will also be shown how the success of his high-speed Schneider Trophy designs propelled him reluctantly into public attention and how his anxiety for his pilots’ safety matched an equal concern that his designs should not let down an expectant nation. Later expectations on him to produce a ‘killer fighter’ were equally daunting, and the outcome was often uncertain, but details of colleagues’ accounts highlight the essential and unique contribution of R.J.’s experience and drive to the eventual appearance of the iconic Spitfire.

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North Carolina is home to the longest continuous barbecue tradition on the North American mainland. Holy Smoke is a passionate exploration of the lore, recipes, traditions, and people who have helped shape North Carolina’s signature slowfood dish. A new preface by the authors examines the latest news, good and bad, from the world of Tar Heel barbecue.

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This is a participant-observer's account of African American life in a small Southern town just prior to the Civil Rights era.Consisting of ""Blackways of Kent"" (1955), ""Millways of Kent"" (1958), and ""Townways of Kent"", the ""Kent Trilogy"" forms a remarkable southern ethnography that maps the social stratification of the Piedmont town of York, South Carolina, in the late 1940s, after the Great Depression and before Civil Rights era. In 1946 the University of North Carolina's Institute for Research in Social Science commissioned a series of southern community studies from which these volumes resulted.Lewis offers a participant-observer's views on small-town southern race relations in the mid-twentieth century. Based on Lewis's interviews with community informants and experiences working in York between 1948 and 1949, the dynamic descriptions of individuals and rich explorations of institutions and traditions bring the community to life once more. Wholly segregated from the townfolk and from the poor whites of the mill village, the black community constructed a fully realized culture all its own. Most telling in Lewis's astute observations into the hierarchy of this community is that, unlike the rigid white class structure based in ancestry and wealth, stratification in the black community was governed by personal behavior. This edition is expanded with a new preface by Reed on the origins and impact of the ""Kent Trilogy"" and new introduction by Stanfield detailing Lewis's field research for this volume as well as his subsequent career.

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