The South : A Two-Step Odyssey on the Backroads of the Enchanted Land

A tour through the history, politics, and culture of the South is complemented by interviews with such figures as William Fulbright, Daisy Bates, Rosa Parks, Jimmy Buffett, and Shelby Foote

The Mason-Dixon line refers not only to a geographic division but also to a "moral, political and economic" culture that Hall and Wood (coauthors of Big Muddy) reexamine in a sweeping tour of the region that is chock-full of anecdote, history and fresh insights. From Virginia to Florida, Oklahoma to Texas, the authors delineate their different ambiences, heroes, villains and common folk. A matriarchal culture and an enduring attachment to the land still characterize most of the region despite all the post-Civil War changes and the differing rates of industrialization. They also argue that a sensuousness and an inclination to myth and fantasy distinguish the South from the North. The authors investigate the influence of the ecology of each state?in their view, for example, Florida is a Mediterranean enclave?on its development and character. Their tours of Jimmy Carter's Plains, Ga., and Bill Clinton's Hope, Ark., are more than a little revealing of the influences on these two leaders, as are their dips into Jefferson's Virginia, Faulkner's Mississippi and the homes of a multitude of other literary and political figures. An intimately perceptive and vividly written portrait of the region.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As Hall and Wood wind their way through the landscape of the American South, they endeavor to arrive at a workable definition of that region's nature. The authors' building materials, as they add layers to their definition the further they proceed from one end of the South to the other, are the things they elicit from southerners about themselves that reveal their attitudes and habits, as well as the authors' own expert knowledge of southern historical events and cultural trends (using, in particular, southern literature as a guide to southern mentality). Part travelogue, part extended sociological essay, Hall and Wood's charming and edifying account explodes some myths but supports other long-held conceptions, if deemed accurate. All this goodly detail and analysis amount to a deliciously complex, multipatterned map of southern civilization. Brad Hooper

Hall and Wood, Arkansas coauthors of Big Muddy: Life on the Mississippi Revisited (Dutton, 1992), join up again for a sweeping view of the South, from the Beltway to the bayous, the bluegrass to the wiregrass, the Tidewater to the Piedmont, up the Big Muddy, across the mountains, and deep into the soul of the country. W.J. Cash's classic Mind of the South (1941) charts their intellectual course, but conversation, intuition, anecdote, and observation guide their present-day investigations. Errors in history and exaggerations almost sink their account, as does their habit of loading supposed Southernisms onto the narrative, but the authors find a great truth among the clutter-namely, that there are, and have been, many Souths. And even as the region resists change, it changes, as the public etiquette in race relations attests. This book will grow thick from the many dog-eared pages marking its pithy truths. Hall and Wood fall short of V.S. Naipaul or C. Vann Woodward in essaying the South, but they give a wild and often wise ride through America's most enduring riddle, which, they discover, is as much a state of mind as a place. For all academic and major public libraries.
Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.