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Book Cover for: The Southern Way of Life: Meanings of Culture and Civilization in the American South, Charles Reagan Wilson

The Southern Way of Life: Meanings of Culture and Civilization in the American South

Charles Reagan Wilson

Hardcover
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How does one begin to understand the idea of a distinctive southern way of life--a concept as enduring as it is disputed? In this examination of the American South in national and global contexts, celebrated historian Charles Reagan Wilson assesses how diverse communities of southerners have sought to define the region's identity. Surveying three centuries of southern regional consciousness across many genres, disciplines, and cultural strains, Wilson considers and challenges prior presentations of the region, advancing a vision of southern culture that has always been plural, dynamic, and complicated by race and class.

Structured in three parts, The Southern Way of Life takes readers on a journey from the colonial era to the present, from when complex ideas of "southern civilization" rooted in slaveholding and agrarianism dominated to the twenty-first-century rise of a modern, multicultural "southern living." As Wilson shows, there is no singular or essential South but rather a rich tapestry woven with contestations, contingencies, and change.

Book Details

  • Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
  • Publish Date: Jan 10th, 2023
  • Pages: 616
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.21in - 5.98in - 1.57in - 2.20lb
  • EAN: 9781469664989
  • Categories: • United States - State & Local - South (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,• Social History

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About the Author

Wilson, Charles Reagan: - Charles Reagan Wilson is professor emeritus of history and southern studies at the University of Mississippi.

More books by Charles Reagan Wilson

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Book Cover for: Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis, Charles Reagan Wilson
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Book Cover for: Flashes of a Southern Spirit: Meanings of the Spirit in the U.S. South, Charles Reagan Wilson

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: UNC Press
UNC Press
@UNC_Press
1 year

The University of North Carolina Press publishes distinguished scholarship and superb general interest books. Founded in 1922.

"'The Southern Way of Life' [by Charles Reagan Wilson] is academic, slow reading. Its gravitas—analyzing what Southernness means—warrants the patience entailed." https://t.co/WA2nEXdXW2 via @upmiss

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The New Statesman
@NewStatesman
2 years

Politics, geopolitics, economics, books, culture, ideas, science, history, tech, data... Become a subscriber: https://t.co/QTtdVUzLws

Book of the Day: “Charles Reagan Wilson has spent his life turning the South from something not forgotten into something born again.” Robert Colls on The Southern Way of Life by Charles Reagan Wilson. https://t.co/4A1ER3sIKp

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Mentioner image for: Sonya Bonczek
Sonya Bonczek
@SonyaBonczek
2 years

Director of Publicity @UNC_Press đź“šđź“Ł Currently reading Prison Capital by Lydia Pelot-Hobbs (Nov). Publicity inquiries: sonya.bonczek@uncpress.org

Robert Colls on Charles Reagan Wilson’s new (“600-page epic”) book THE SOUTHERN WAY OF LIFE https://t.co/vfRIN07748

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Praise for this book

An impressive and elucidating work of cultural history"--Publishers Weekly
This book is a masterful study . . . . engaging, enlightening, and deeply relevant--an impressive and fitting accomplishment for Wilson's already storied career."--The Civil War Monitor
[Charles Reagan Wilson] knows all there is to know about Southern culture, and then some. His 1,600-page half-tonne truck of a book, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989), was a landmark work that, in this 600-page epic, has found its narrative partner . . . . He ranges across the full story, from fine oratory to racial epithets, from great literatures to two-dime records, from classical mansions to juke joints . . . . Wilson has spent his life turning the South from something not forgotten into something born again."--The New Statesman
What makes this book a commanding work of scholarship is the subtlety of Wilson's exploration of the centuries-long evolution of regional identity, its engagement with questions of authority, and its adaptation to changing social and economic conditions. . . . This work, the product of a distinguished career, powerfully shows that southern cultures and identities remain vital scholarly subjects."-North Carolina Historical Review
Timely and essential. . . . Cross-Border Cosmopolitans is convincingly driven by a premise, that of the need to 'excavate, recover and reconstruct' the history of the African diaspora in North America which Adjetey argues is an important part of the history of the Atlantic world."--Ethnic and Racial Studies

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