num_pages: 330
description: In this volume twelve authors take a challenging new look at the South. Departing from the issue that has lately preoccupied observers of the South - the region's waning cultural distinctiveness - the contributors instead look at the dynamics of the region's long-troubled relationship with the rest of the nation. What they discover allows us all to view the current state and future course of the South as well as its link to the broader culture and polity in a new light.To envision the concept of the Problem South and what it means to those within and without the region six historians have joined together with a sociologist an economist two literary scholars a legal scholar and a journalist. Their essays which range in subject from the South's climate to its religious fundamentalism to its great outpouring of fiction and autobiography are the products of strong and independent minds that cut across disciplines disagree among themselves blend contemporary and historical insights and confront conventional wisdom and expedient generalities.Although consensus among the contributors was never the goal of this collection some common themes do suggest themselves. Above all there is not only a South defined by its geography history and society but also a mythic and metaphoric South - one continually refashioned by national/regional discourse trends and events. In addition the South has long been a mirror in which America has viewed itself. The nation has sought time and again to change the region but it has also used the South to expose and modify darker impulses of American culture.
language: English
title: The South As an American Problem
publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr