The American South: A Very Short Introduction
- ISBN-10
- 0199943575
- ISBN-13
- 9780199943579
- Series
- The American South
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 160
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-12-01
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Charles Reagan Wilson
Description
The American South is a distinctive place with a dramatic history, and has significance beyond its regional context in the twenty first century. The American South: A Very Short Introduction explores the history of the South as a cultural crossroads, a meeting place between western Europe and West Africa. The South's beginnings illuminate the expansion of Europe into the New World, creating a colonial slave society that distinguished it from other parts of the United States but fostered commonalities with other colonial societies. The Civil War and civil rights movement transformed the South in differing ways and remain a part of a vibrant and contested public memory. More recently, the South's pronounced traditionalism in customs and values was in tension with the forces of modernization that slowly forced change in the twentieth century. Southerners' creative responses to these experiences have made the American South well known around the world in literature, film, music, and cuisine. Charles Reagan Wilson argues for the significance of creativity in the South, emerging from the diversity of peoples, cultures, and experiences that the regional context fostered. The South has now become the new center of immigration, adding to the complexity of the region's cultural, social, economic, and political life. In this book, the burdens and tragedies of southern history are placed beside the creative achievements that have come out of the region, producing a portrait of a complex American place.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2020-12-10
- 168 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press
Similar books
-
The American South: A History
By William J. Cooper, Thomas E. Terrill, Jr.In The American South, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the south from the history of the United States.
-
The American South: A History
By William James Cooper, Tom E. TerrillLooks at the growth of the South from the English background of the 1607 settlement of Jamestown, to the political disintegration of the "solid South," to the economic transformation of...
-
The Idea of the American South, 1920-1941
By Michael O'Brien12 While he was beginning the hectic research for the book, Vernon Parrington's Main Currents in American Thought was published. His reaction, contrasted to his feeling about Mims's The Advancing South, showed how much he was groping ...
-
Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South
By James Harvey Young, Todd L. SavittThis book looks at disease entities (yellow fever, hookworm, pellagra) especially associated with the American South and wrestles with the relation of diseases to an issue of perennial concern to southern historians, that of southern ...
-
The American South in a Global World
By Harry L. Watson, James L. Peacock, Carrie R. MatthewsFirst, although it is evident that the American South has been transformed by globalization, it is yet worth ... the world-turned-upside-down conditions of Reconstruction, followed by the imposition of terror and Jim Crow with the ...
-
The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction
By Edward L. Ayers, Bradley C. MittendorfGathers short stories, journalism, and excerpts from novels, diaries, and memoirs by Southern authors
-
Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South
By Michael PermanKazin, Michael. Godly Hero: The Life ofWilliamjennings Bryan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Kousser, J. Morgan. The Shaping ofSouthern Politics: Suflrage Restriction and the Establishment ofthe One-Party South, 1880-1910.
-
Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History
By David R. GoldfieldIn this sweeping narrative of the South from the Civil War to the present, noted historian David Goldfield contemplates the roots of southern memory and explains how this memory has shaped the modern South both for good and ill.".
-
Black Exodus: The Great Migration from the American South
By Alferdteen HarrisonAn exploration of the impact of the massive migration of southern blacks to the North
-
The American South and the Great War, 1914-1924
By Matthew L. Downs, M. Ryan FloydBureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, ... 1880–1940,” in Great Britain and Her World, 1750–1914: Essays in Honour of W. O. Henderson, ed. by Barrie M. Ratcliffe ...