When the Mississippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman

 1811 and 1812 saw the New Madrid earthquakes shake the center of the continent unlike any other earthquake in our human history.  It was a movement that affected the flow of the Mississippi, changed its course, created a new lake - Reelfoot - and may have altered our history.

It happened during the cusp of the war of 1812 and the efforts of Tecumseh to unite the Indian nations.  It happened during the maiden cruise of the New Orleans down the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers - the first steamboat to do it and the beginning of an new age. It happened where a formerly important Spanish settlement - New Madrid - had been established, a location now part of the new territory of the Louisiana purchase.

It happened where to countries - US and Spain formerly bordered one another with Kentucky, across the river, filled with miscreants and outcasts (including relatives of Meriwhether Lewis) and the earthquake seemed like a symbol of more than the stresses of a continent and the movements of great faults, it was also a pivotal moment in Indian, Spanish, Louisiana, commerce, and British relationships.

The author uses the earthquake to tell much broader historical tales and allows the actual shaking of the earth to be an anchor point in his narrative.  That might be a little shaky too, but he still finds ways to connect the areas of the two major rivers together and the story telling is vivid and enjoyable.