The failure of racial inequality to decline between 1950 and 1990, however, was largely due to adverse trends in the 1980s. Inequality did narrow from 1950 to 1980. Chapters 5 and 6 are the heart of the book. Chapter 5 presents a cross-sectional regression analysis of occupational inequality. The substantive results are quite similar regardless of how the data are viewed, not always the case with longitudinal data.
Long time Coming is easy to criticize.
The style is academic sociology, acceptable for social scientists, but more often than not all but unintelligible to humanists. Title notwithstanding, there is very little specifically southern about this book, except for the data. Outside of sociology, the authors' knowledge of the relevant literature, particularly in economics and economic history, fails to impress. My biggest complaint stems from the book's raison d' tre . The sample counties should not be thought of as observations somehow independent from each other and from the broader economy.