Kevin McKinley is the author of All Things Southern, a weekly historical and genealogical column in several South Alabama newspapers, the Shadows and Dust series picks up where the column leaves off in terms of the micro history of a region of the country which has seen the rise and fall of the Confederacy, the Great Depression, World War II and the post war boom. Shadows and Dust details many of the people and places that makes SW Alabama and NW Florida special to the people who connect to the area's past.