The American South has long been a subject of endless scholarly fascination. Historians and social scientists have endeavored to decipher the ""enigma"" of the region and to identify the formative factors that have molded the southern experience.They have searched for a ""central theme"" that would explain southern behavior and have debated the extent to which the region was ""distinctive"" from the rest of the nation. More recently, historical scholarship has shown a growing interest in the evolution of southern culture and the forces that shaped it. The southern enigma is yet to be fully deciphered, but The Evolution of Southern Culture addresses questions crucial to an understanding of the region's history. The book brings together original, searching essays by nine of the nation's most distinguished scholars: Immanuel Wallerstein, Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eric Foner, Nell Irvin Painter, George M. Frederickson, Joel Williamson, Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Almost three decades after publication of the tenth volume of A History of the South -- George Tindall's The Emergence of the New South, 1913--1945 -- Numan V. Bartley now presents Volume XI: a masterly synthesis of the region's most complex years to date. From the close of World War II to the end of the seventies, the South underwent changes of such a radical nature and such tumultuous process -- from rural orientation to urban; from segregated society to racially commingled; from poverty-saturated economy to positively booming Sunbelt -- that the contrast between 1945 and 1980 almost defies cogent explanation. Bartley, however, meets that challenge, illuminating the intervening years both individually and collectively within one monumental work.

In a narrative that exhibits balance, clarity, and objectivity, Bartley traces developments in the political, economic, religious, cultural, and social realms of southern life. He follows the rise and fall of postwar liberalism, the role of the Dixiecrats, and the resurgence of southern conservatism. He discusses the depopulation of the countryside, the growth of urban areas, and the expansion of industry and services?and how these changes affected the way southerners lived their lives, earned their livelihoods, and interpreted the world around them.

Here, perhaps for the first time in one volume, is the complete civil rights story. The movements both for black civil rights and for women's rights, Bartley shows, contributed to and benefited from the spread of modernist culture in the region. One effect of that culture was the dissolution of restrictive social norms and the furtherance of an individualism oriented toward self-fulfillment and self-achievement.

In his Afterword, Bartley offers an interpretative overview of events and also identifies trends since 1980. His Bibliographical Essay is a testimony to his superb command of the material of the period; it could stand alone as one of the finest available guides to primary and secondary sources on the modern South.

Long awaited, The New South, 1945--1980 is a feat of historical detail and summation that will become the essential resource on the South's recent past.

An astute and stimulating account of the people and forces that shaped the development of Georgia and, by implication, other areas of the South, "The Creation of Modern Georgia" is a provocative reinterpretation of the transition from the Old South to the New. Rejecting previous analyses, Bartley describes the persistence and ultimate collapse of a plantation-oriented colonial society and the emergence of a modern Georgia. In the second edition, Bartley has enlarged and updated the book with two new chapters to place greater emphasis on the expanded urbanization, industrialization, and diversification of Georgia.

The American South has long been a subject of endless scholarly fascination. Historians and social scientists have endeavored to decipher the "enigma" of the region and to identify the formative factors that have molded the southern experience.They have searched for a "central theme" that would explain southern behavior and have debated the extent to which the region was "distinctive" from the rest of the nation. More recently, historical scholarship has shown a growing interest in the evolution of southern culture and the forces that shaped it.

The southern enigma is yet to be fully deciphered, but "The Evolution of Southern Culture" addresses questions crucial to an understanding of the region's history. The book brings together original, searching essays by nine of the nation's most distinguished scholars: Immanuel Wallerstein, Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eric Foner, Nell Irvin Painter, George M. Frederickson, Joel Williamson, Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Originally published in 1969, The Rise of Massive Resistance was the first scholarly work to deal decisively with the politics of southern resistance to public school integration. Today, it remains one of the most important books on the subject. For this thirtieth anniversary edition, Numan Bartley has included a new preface in which he reflects on his reasons for writing the book and why it has stood the test of time.

Bartley gives a step-by-step account of opposition to school desegregation in each southern state during the 1950s and clarifies the attitudes underlying massive resistance by examining the roles played by such southern leaders as James F. Byrnes, Harry Flood Byrd, James O. Eastland, Orval E. Faubus, Claude Pepper, Estes Kefauver, Richard B. Russell, Herman Talmadge, "Big Jim" Folsom, and Earl K. Long. He also closely analyzes the attitudes of the Eisenhower administration and national leaders toward the South and explores the activities of the Citizens' Councils, the Ku Klux Klan, and other local groups that emerged to defend "the southern way of life". His closing "Critical Essay on Authorities" still forms an excellent guide to primary and secondary sources on opposition to Brown v. Board of Education.