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Title: Looking for De Soto: A Search Through the South for the Spaniard's Trail by Joyce Rockwood Hudson ISBN: 0-8203-1497-8 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: June, 1993 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Behind every great man...
Comment: This is a derivative work which is most enjoyable if one has a tiny bit of knowledge about De Soto. For budding De Soto enthusiasts, Looking For De Soto is a must read.

Joyce Rockwood Hudson has written a lively and entertaining account of a six-week vacation she and her husband took in November-December 1984 where they followed the sixteenth century explorer De Soto's trail through the southeastern United States.

You have to love people who shun the cruise ships and Disneyworld and Madison Avenue in order to tromp around in the mud of backwater swamps while on vacation.

One might reasonably ask, who is this lady, and why should we care? She is the wife of noted anthropology professor Charles Hudson, and we should care because Professor Hudson has set forth an alternative route for the De Soto expedition, differing in important ways from the route as determined by the Swanton Commission (published by Smithsonian Press, 1939).

The issue has not been settled - that of De Soto's precise route - but Professor Hudson's theories are interesting and taken seriously by academia as well as people such as myself who enjoy visiting historic places.

If you are lost, don't feel alone. So are the Hudsons. That's the point. No one really knows where De Soto went, exactly, but the author ignites interest. She also describes in an engaging way a portion of the field work conducted while on "vacation", adding weight to Professor Hudson's theories.

And remember, folks, this is only one theory of many. That's most of the fun. Those of us who consider ourselves southerners can relate. It is sort of like arguing whether Alabama's football team is number one, or Georgia's or Florida's...

Only this stuff happened four hundred and fifty years ago, and the debate rages.

These Conquistador fellows didn't ask for directions, they just snatched the first native American that came along and clapped him in chains if he didn't speak right up.

Mrs. Hudson keeps you moving right along, with interesting detours about pecans, zinc mining, salt making, etc. She writes clearly, has a keen eye for the absurd, and knows how to deliver a punch line. I'm still laughing over the French colonial town of Smackover. I would also imagine that if you poke too many holes in her husband's theories, she might chew off your ear. A stand up lady.

One or two fly specks in the book. A map comparing Hudson and Swanton routes would have helped enormously. You'll find yourself sorting through the Atlas and a dusty copy of the Swanton report. The author also fails to mention the name of a good rib place in Memphis. Unconscionable. The Afterword updates the reader on happenings through 1992, when the book was published.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I wish De Soto would have had someone like Joyce Rockwood Hudson along. Even epic tales of death, disease, despair, and war require the female touch.