Customer Reviews

The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved what the book! As a 4th generation Mississippi Deltan, seventh generation Mississippian, white , 48 year old male, I was very impressed with Mr Cobb's research. He certainly dispelled many of the myths that we were taught as we grew up from a segregated society to a desegregated society. I now live in Colorado but my family and friends still live in the Delta. I wish this book was required reading in the schools in the Delta as well as anywhere segregation and racism exists to help people better understand why these problems that continue to plague these areas will not go away. A great study on the Mississippi Delta with more fact than fiction.

I must give the author credit for capturing the physical ethos of the Delta land. Like Eudora Welty, I am a strong believer in a "sense of place" and the description of the soil, rivers,vines,cane brakes,and trees is superb. The rich and fecund soil--"in the passionate embrace of deep-rooted trees and close-clinging vines." One can feel the heat rising and the Kudzu groping its tendrils through the subtropical landscape. With entire banks of soil cleaving into the frothing flood swollen Mississippi--the Congo Basin of the South.

These are the rich bottom lands of William Faulkner's Bear novella and Percy's levee lanterns. Here black men and women developed a culture and even freedom that spawned much of the civil rights movement. Asians and Italians and Anglo-Saxon folks from the hill country all came together in a curious mix. The Delta is the most African part of America in many respects and remains a land of promise and despair--best illustrated in the music of the Delta Blues. And all the while the promise of the soil and the rich fecundity of the soil conjures up images of Antebellum Greek Revival homes next to sharecropper cottages. Less red clay and more black alluvium that was hardly a part of the historical Old South as it developed for the most part much later after the War. The book is but an introduction to a unique land.

I couldn't disagree more with Cecil Fox's obtuse review of this book. I think Mr. Fox spent more time examining his 'Word of the Day' calendar than attempting to formulate a coherent review. In fact, his description of Cobb's work reads more like a pastiche of academic cliches than an opinion from a reader who might have actually read the book he was reviewing. Revisionism? Where? "Ideological rectitude?" What ideology was espoused? I thought the text was concise and honest about the South, the Delta, and regional identity. Apologist? Please see Mr. Fox's review of "Moon Handbooks Havana" for a textbook example where he equates the U.S. with a third-world country in comparison to Cuba and offers up the laughable non sequitur that "Civil liberties are no more endangered in Havana than in Alabama or the Bronx." If Mr. Fox did indeed grow up in the Delta, then his review more accurately reflects the pretentious dismisiveness of a prodigal son from Madison or Ridgeland than a sharecropper from Tutwiler. Cobb's focus on the elite as an oppresive force that shaped both the economy and society in the same manner that the Mississippi shaped the Delta might not be popular with all but will never be mistaken as revisionist.

It's a very readable book with lots of information about The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta all the way from Reconstruction to our modern Welfare times. The intervention of the Federal government to allegedly improve the status of blacks, whether it was at the wake of the War or by means of the New Deal, and up to the latest impulses of liberal Big Government, has never done any good: only shifted the paternalistic role from the white man to the welfare state. It's curious to see how blacks have reacted to this paternalism through the times. Unlike the prodigal son, he has it both ways: comes home to cash his welfare check, then goes out rambling.

Most revealing to me was the terrible impact of the 1967 one-dollar-per-hour minimum wage, the dream of liberal social scientists and planners. It made the black workers poorer, so much so that they had to borrow from the planters, which increased their dependency.

The book is most interesting because it is life from the ground, from the plantation and street; and it's also a cultural history, the American way: made by the common man and for the common man to read. Therefore it includes a succint but juicy chapter on the Blues, and another or the density of literary figures in the area.

It reads smoothly, without any academic jargon, left mostly to the voices of the characters themselves, their laments, their ambitions, their joys of some and pains of others. It's definitely the description of the lives of these people, blacks and whites, and letting us hear their own testimonies or anecdotes that make this an important book.

The following excerpt -to me, at least- says it all about what meant to live in the Delta:

"Finding himself in an elevator and carrying a load of packages, Richard Wright was assisted by a white man who took his hat off for him and placed it upon his packages. Wright explained that 'to have said "thank you" would have made the white man think that you thought that you were receiving from him a personal service. For such an act I have seen Negroes take a blow in the mouth. Finding the first alternative distasteful, and the second dangerous, I hit upon an acceptable course ... pretended that my packages were about to spill and appeared deeply distressed ... In this fashion I evaded having to acknowledge his service ... and savaged a slender shred of personal pride."

If that isn't stuff for a classic, what is! Now figure thousands of possible situations in everyday life and what a panorama you get! Not material for teenage-minded Hollywood, for sure. No wonder so may artists and musicians nationwide got their inspiration from the South.

Here you get American History condensed in a few counties, like in a lab. History by the people and for the people. The history that counts.

The publishers did a huge disfavor to the author. In an age when most anyone can select an easily legible typeface, this book is the exception. The low quality is noticeable on a quick flip-through and on every page as the densely-packed letters brake reading speed to a crawl. Maybe this is not an issue with the Kindle version, but in print, it's a large and unwanted obstacle that interferes with an otherwise delightful and informative story-telling.

Love it or hate it, the South, and Mississipi in particular, looms large in the identity of America. "The Most Southern Place on Earth" does an outstanding job explaining how Mississippi became, well, Mississippi. It is just amazing how much this obscure and economicaly poor state has contributed to the arts and culture of the county.

Book is very detailed. If you are very interested in specific family names, dates and events, this book is for you. Otherwise, it is a slow, monotonous account of all farmers who settled in the Delta region.

There are many interesting parts to the book, but you must be prepared to dedicate time and resources to the book.

I grew up as a Northerner; I don't think I put the pieces together until I matured as a Southerner visiting the Mississippi Delta. My goal was to research the lives of Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood Jr., Robert Johnson's best freind and stepson.
Along with Rising Tide which put a sharp edge or racism for me, this was my guide to the historical background among which these seminal bluesmen grew up. The delta and its history was as much of the history of the blues as the musicians.
Through this book and many visits with African-Americans living in poverty in the delta I began to understand the South in a way few Southerner will ever understand and/or be able to articulate.

I ordered this as a gift for my sister. We are from Mississippi & enjoy reading anything concerning the South. Very interesting book. She was happy!

full of information. invaluable research tool.
can't believe that this one got by me, previously.