Little State, Big Mouth

Rhode Island is easy to forget. People confuse it with Long Island, assume it is part of Massachusetts, or wonder why a place so small gets to be a state at all. But underestimate the Ocean State at your peril. For nearly four hundred years, Rhode Island has been punching above its weight, burning ships, brawling over chowder, electing mobbed-up mayors, and yelling at its neighbors just to make sure it gets noticed.

In Little State, Big Mouth: An Irreverent History of Rhode Island, Jordan Blake Carter delivers a fast, funny, and sharp-eyed roast of America’s smallest state. Inside you’ll find:

Roger Williams, the loudmouth who got kicked out of Massachusetts and invented religious freedom by accident. The Gaspee Affair, when Rhode Islanders torched a British ship before Boston threw its little tea party. Factories, mobsters, and crooked politicians who turned corruption into a lifestyle. Gilded Age elites building “cottages” the size of palaces while locals rolled their eyes. Weird foods like coffee milk, hot wieners, and pizza strips defended with the passion of constitutional rights. Ghost stories, Lovecraftian shadows, and the Conjuring House reminding everyone that Rhode Island thrives on being a little haunted. Equal parts history and roast, this book proves that Rhode Island may be small, but it is never boring. With humor, grit, and plenty of salt, Little State, Big Mouth shows why America needs its tiniest state to keep the whole country honest, or at least entertained.