Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920

The Praying South and the Fighting South are two of our most popular images of white southern culture. In Subduing Satan, Ted Ownby details the tensions between these complex — and often opposing — attitudes.

“Ownby’s re-creation of male recreation is rich and fascinating. He paints the saloon and the street, the cockfighting and dogfighting rings as realms of distinctly male vices, enjoyed lustily by men seeking to escape the sweet virtue of the Southern Christian home.” — Nation

“A bold new thesis. . . . [Ownby] gives us guideposts in the ongoing search for the meaning of southern history.” — Journal of Southern History

“I suspect that for many years ahead Ted Ownby’s Subduing Satan will serve as the standard guide on how to write religious social history.” — Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida

“This is one of the freshest and most interesting books written about the American South in years. By focusing on the cultural conflicts of everyday life, Ownby gets us right to the heart of white culture in the South between Reconstruction and the 1920s.” — Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia