The American South [Hardcover]

William J. Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 1990

"The American South" takes a fresh look at major political, economic, social, and cultural developments from the founding of Jamestown in 1607, to the present day. The combined volume begins with settlement of the English colonies and takes students right through to the present. The book offers: coverage of slavery - it's origins, how it functioned as an institution, the world of slaves in the colonial era and the 19th century; and coverage of women - providing a sense of their lives and roles inside and outside of the family from the colonial era onwards.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This massive, colorful, continually absorbing panorama takes a fresh look at the whole of Southern history. It puts special emphasis on "Negrophobia, for some 200 years the cornerstone of Southern politics and society." The authors, both history professors--Cooper at Louisiana State University, Terrill at the University of South Carolina--bring recent scholarship to bear on a host of topics, from guerrilla warfare between royalists and rebels during the American Revolution to slavery, the Southern Literary Renaissance and the decline of front-porch culture in the urbanized Sunbelt. On some issues they take a revisionist stance (e.g., "Whether patriarchy was the official ideology in the antebellum South is by no means clear"). Although Southern culture remained trapped in Victorianism as late as the 1920s, modernism forced a wrenching self-examination. The authors find "no Eden in Dixie" as they survey the New South of persistent racial division, high murder rates, televangelism and low incomes. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Given the many recent books on specific periods of Southern history (particularly the Civil War), the appearance of this text that covers the sweep of Southern history from the English origins of Jamestown through the rise and fall of the "Solid South" to the socioeconomic transformation of the Sunbelt in the 1970s and 1980s is most welcome. Stressing the dynamics of the relationship between white and black Southerners that have shaped the history of the region for more than 300 years, the authors (both professors at Southern universities) incorporate recent scholarship into their attempt to answer two long-standing questions: What was and is the American South? What was and is a Southerner? Along the way they pay attention to such traditional subjects as political leadership and plantation economics, as well as to topics once conspicuously absent from Southern history textbooks: Southern Native Americans, the slave family, post-emancipation black life, Southern labor, and Southern women. Recommended for Southern history collections.
- Jason H. Silverman, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 835 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st trade ed edition (October 31, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394589483
• ISBN-13: 978-0394589480
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,571,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Never received this book, July 4, 2011

By 

Maxine Powell (Alabaster, Alabama, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The American South: A History (Hardcover)

I received the first volume of The American South a few days after ordering it. I still have not received the second book. I do not need it now, the class is over. I do need for my money to be returned.