Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture
"Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through graduate students general readers."--Choice"The book is beautifully illustrated from archival documents and from the author's large personal collection of sheet music covers and advertisements. . . . well researched and documented."--Cercles"Dreaming of Dixietherefore updates, however implicitly, what was once labeled consensus history."--Southern Jewish History"Well illustrated and topically expansive."--Journal of American History"A fascinating look at how the Lost Cause mythology and its attendant nostalgia for 'the Old South' came to be the dominant narrative in America in the early twentieth century."--Arkansas Review"[Cox] poses a solid, logical argument as to why so many Americans. . . have so often looked to the South as a sort of time capsule dutifully preserving the values and lifestyles of a rural, pre-modern, and bygone era."--Southern Historian"Aids in broadening the significance of the American South beyond big-time historical events and big-time literary works."--Southern Literary Journal"Beautifully illustrated. . . . Well researched and documented."--Cercles"A comprehensive historical survey of mainstream popular culture's treatment of the American South between the late nineteenth century and the civil rights movement."--E3W Review of Books"Readers will enjoy this clear and concise book, whether or not they are well versed in the South. Cox writes beautifully and leaves out the jargon that plague other cultural critiques. . . .Dreaming of Dixieoffers an excellent overview of the creation of southern identity by popular culture."--Georgia Historical Quarterly"Specialists and general readers alike will find this text an invaluable analysis of popular-culture representations of the South."--The Historian"Dreaming of Dixieis filled with thick description complemented by informative broader context."--Journal of Southern History"A thoughtful, engaging, clearly argued and eminently assignable book."--Journal of American Studies"A fine monographic filled with wonderful illustrations. It would make a terrific addition to any course on the New South."--Tennessee Historical Quarterly"Cox provides a vibrant, richly illustrated, and highly readable study of Dixie as a "cultural commodity" (p.129). The rigorous research is complemented by an accessible style ideal for scholars and general readers alike."--Register of The Kentucky Historical Society"A thoughtful, engaging, clearly argued and eminently assignable book which treats popular culture seriously as a means to interrogate major issues in southern, indeed American, social history in the decades before the Second World War."--Journal of American Studies"Everyone interested in the larger story of Southern tourism will want to readDreaming of Dixie, as will anyone who wants to understand the role that images of the South and Southerners have played in American culture."--Florida Historical Quarterly"A very well done and thoroughly researched historical study that students and scholars of the south or of the processes of representation and place-making will appreciate."--Journal of Historical Geography"Cox provides an engaging introduction to the field, along with many rich new insights drawn from a vast array of archival materials."--North Carolina Historical Review"A valuable work that helps explain why we as a nation have long viewed the South the way we have."--Public Historian"Cox's engaging and wonderfully illustrated book serves as a much-needed challenge to historians to pursue further interdisciplinary study of the American South in popular culture and would also be of interest to scholars interested in consumerism, tourism, and the intersections between regionalism and national identity.""-The Southern Register"A fascinating book."--Against the Grain