If it can be said that there are many Souths, wrote W. J. Cash in
The Mind of the South, ""the fact remains that there is also one
South."" In the informal, engaging essays brought together in One
South, John Shelton Reed focuses on the South's strong regional
identity and on the persistence, well into the last decades if the
twentieth century, of Southern cultural distinctiveness. Reed
argues that Southerners are similar in much the same way that
members if an ethnic group are similar. He discusses the South's
shared cultural values, ranging from serious examinations of
Southern violence and regional identity to considerations of
Southern humor, country music, and the emergence of a new Southern
middle class, epitomized by the family of former president Jimmy
Carter. Reed opens his volume with three essays dealing with the
discipline of sociology and its relation to the South. The first
essay proposes ways that sociology can contribute to the mainstream
of regional studies; the second traces the history of sociological
attention to the South in our century; and the this suggests that
the sociological way of thinking may be somewhat alien to well-bred
Southerners. In the next section, Reed looks at the question of
group identity, arguing in one essay, ""The Heart of Dixie,"" that
the South is best defined by locating Southerners, rather than by
isolating a particular geographic region. Reed then turns his
attention to minority and fringe groups within the South,
including, in ""Shalom, Y'All,"" Southern Jews. A final section
looks at some of the particular advantages and disadvantages of
life in the New South today. Reed's explorations into the region's
culture reveal that Southerners are identifiable as a group less by
obvious background characteristics, education, occupation, rural or
urban residence, than by shared attitudes toward family and
community, religious beliefs and practices, and violence and the
private use of force: the kind of things that customarily identify
ethnic groups. In this way, One South demonstrates how history and
the heritage of Southernness have for now triumphed over the
disintegrating forces of geography and economics.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
