In "Alabama Getaway" Allen Tullos explores the recent history of one of the nation's most conservative states to reveal its political imaginary--the public shape of power, popular imagery, and individual opportunity.

From Alabama's largely ineffectual politicians to its miserly support of education, health care, cultural institutions, and social services, Tullos examines why the state appears to be stuck in repetitive loops of uneven development and debilitating habits of judgment. The state remains tied to fundamentalisms of religion, race, gender, winner-take-all economics, and militarism enforced by punitive and defensive responses to criticism. Tullos traces the spectral legacy of George Wallace, ponders the roots of anti-egalitarian political institutions and tax structures, and challenges Birmingham native Condoleezza Rice's use of the civil rights struggle to justify the war in Iraq. He also gives due coverage to the state's black citizens who with a minority of whites have sustained a movement for social justice and democratic inclusion. As Alabama competes for cultural tourism and global industries like auto manufacturing and biomedical research, "Alabama Getaway" asks if the coming years will see a transformation of the "Heart of Dixie."

In "Alabama Getaway" Allen Tullos explores the recent history of one of the nation's most conservative states to reveal its political imaginary--the public shape of power, popular imagery, and individual opportunity.

From Alabama's largely ineffectual politicians to its miserly support of education, health care, cultural institutions, and social services, Tullos examines why the state appears to be stuck in repetitive loops of uneven development and debilitating habits of judgment. The state remains tied to fundamentalisms of religion, race, gender, winner-take-all economics, and militarism enforced by punitive and defensive responses to criticism. Tullos traces the spectral legacy of George Wallace, ponders the roots of anti-egalitarian political institutions and tax structures, and challenges Birmingham native Condoleezza Rice's use of the civil rights struggle to justify the war in Iraq. He also gives due coverage to the state's black citizens who with a minority of whites have sustained a movement for social justice and democratic inclusion. As Alabama competes for cultural tourism and global industries like auto manufacturing and biomedical research, "Alabama Getaway" asks if the coming years will see a transformation of the "Heart of Dixie."

"Habits of Industry" provides a richly descriptive social, historical, and cultural account of the Carolina Piedmont -- the area between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Coastal Plain -- over the course of 150 years. By examining the social and religious culture of the region, Allen Tullos illuminates the lives of the working men and women whose "habits of industry" shaped their world.
Tullos combines archival research with an extensive collection of oral histories to shed new light on the essentially all-white textile industry in the era before World War II. He examines such topics as workers' transition from an agrarian folk culture to an industrial working class, the changing patterns of employers' paternalistic relations, and the contrasting and complimentary meanings of "industry." Using biographies and autobiographies of both mill owners and mill workers, Tullos juxtaposes the entrepreneurial narratives of the Belks, Hammetts, Tompkinses, Dukes, and Loves with the equally remarkable stories of such workers as Ethel Hillard, Alice and Grover Hardin, and Nigel League.