The Stolen House

The focus of this complex and somewhat confusing book is an 1812 court suit that pitted the Christopher orphans against their stepfather John Jacobs in an attempt to recover the use and value of a 100-acre plantation in southern Delaware taken from them in 1784. Using the case to explore the society, landscape, economy, natural history, and architecture of Delaware's Cypress Swamp region, Herman (urban affairs and history, Univ. of Delaware) provides an extremely detailed, descriptive inventory of the area. Despite its elaborate theoretical underpinning and masses of research material, this will frustrate readers unfamiliar with the formal language of cultural geography, anthropology, and material culture. For research collections.- David B. Mattern, Univ. of Virginia, CharlottesvilleCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.