The American South - Hardcover

William J. Cooper Jr.; Thomas E. Terrill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394589483 ISBN 13: 9780394589480

Publisher: Knopf, 1990

Synopsis

Looks 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 Sunbelt in the 1970s and 1980s

About this title

From Library Journal

Given the many recent books on specific periods of Southern history (particularly the Civil War), the appearance of this text that covers the sweep of Southern history from the English origins of Jamestown through the rise and fall of the "Solid South" to the socioeconomic transformation of the Sunbelt in the 1970s and 1980s is most welcome. Stressing the dynamics of the relationship between white and black Southerners that have shaped the history of the region for more than 300 years, the authors (both professors at Southern universities) incorporate recent scholarship into their attempt to answer two long-standing questions: What was and is the American South? What was and is a Southerner? Along the way they pay attention to such traditional subjects as political leadership and plantation economics, as well as to topics once conspicuously absent from Southern history textbooks: Southern Native Americans, the slave family, post-emancipation black life, Southern labor, and Southern women. Recommended for Southern history collections.
- Jason H. Silverman, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

This massive, colorful, continually absorbing panorama takes a fresh look at the whole of Southern history. It puts special emphasis on "Negrophobia, for some 200 years the cornerstone of Southern politics and society." The authors, both history professors--Cooper at Louisiana State University, Terrill at the University of South Carolina--bring recent scholarship to bear on a host of topics, from guerrilla warfare between royalists and rebels during the American Revolution to slavery, the Southern Literary Renaissance and the decline of front-porch culture in the urbanized Sunbelt. On some issues they take a revisionist stance (e.g., "Whether patriarchy was the official ideology in the antebellum South is by no means clear"). Although Southern culture remained trapped in Victorianism as late as the 1920s, modernism forced a wrenching self-examination. The authors find "no Eden in Dixie" as they survey the New South of persistent racial division, high murder rates, televangelism and low incomes. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0394589483
• ISBN 13: 9780394589480
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 835