Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War [Hardcover]

Michael Graham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2002

Forget the mint juleps and the debutante balls, for every slack-jawed yokel who swears he saw The Lizard Man out by the dump, there's a failed televangelist with a family full of hare-lips holding a position as lofty as, say, the President of the United States. Because it's America that's ever more like the South, says Graham, not the other away around. Wafting up from the Mason-Dixon line and spreading like kudzu, redneckery has been absorbed from Bangor to Baha, he claims. The only real difference between Brooklyn and Birmingham is that you can't get a gun rack in a Trans Am.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite having lost the Civil War, the South has somehow managed to win the "battle of ideas" across our nation, contends radio talk-show host Graham in this hilarious collection of essays covering such topics as Enron, the public school system, free speech, multiculturalism, racism and the "supreme triumph of the Redneck nation." Using quotes from H.L. Mencken, Gallup poll statistics and plenty of firsthand experience, the author examines this peculiar phenomenon with a cynical wit that spares no one, including himself. He begins by explaining the difference between the North and South, specifically between South Carolina, where he grew up, and New York, where he often traveled ("New Yorkers pretend they've read books they haven't. Southerners deny reading the ones they have"). Drawing from his own childhood in Dixie ("a land of few ideas, nearly all of them bad"), his college years at Oral Roberts University (which combined "the intellectual rigor of a Sunday school picnic with the sound theological theories of a slumber party s‚ance") and the 27 years he's spent running away from the South, Graham wittily illustrates "Redneck" infiltration into mainstream politics through conspiracy theories, victim mentality (as witnessed by the popularity of such national programs as the Jerry Springer show) and segregation, in a book readers won't be able to put down.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

""I can't remember the last time I read a political book as witty and incisive..." -- Tucker Carlson

"...An adroit and devastating cultural analysis with at least one laugh on every page..." -- Florence King

"...dispels the Southern stereotype. Perfect for reading in bed with your sister." -- Bill Maher

"Graham is the funniest political observer in the country..." -- Chris Matthews

"Michael Graham's REDNECK NATION is funny and insightful. You'll really enjoy it." -- G. Gordon Liddy

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; First Edition edition (October 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446528846
• ISBN-13: 978-0446528849
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You want grits with that??, November 30, 2003

By 

Sylvia R - See all my reviews

This review is from: Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War (Hardcover)

I loved this book! Michael Graham skewers everyone from radical feminists to radical Christians to radical NASCAR fans (and lots of folks in between) with his razor sharp wit.

I don't know if the South can really be held responsible for all the wacky things going on in this country today. Maybe we can just chalk some of it up to basic human stupidty. But if you've ever felt a little queasy while listening to someone talk about last night's "Survivor" episode...if you've ever wondered how educated adults can gaze upon an art masterpiece and be offended...or if you've ever despaired over the darker side of human nature that gives us racism and all other manners of intolerance, you'll enjoy this read.

In spite of the comic presentation, a book like this should make us take a hard look at ourselves and say "I'm going to stop this idiotic behavior." We all know that's not going to happen, but if Mr. Graham's points are completely lost on you, then in the immortal words of Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a redneck!

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best right-wing offers...(and I'm liberal), January 8, 2005

By 

Erik Anschicks (Woodridge, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War (Hardcover)

It has been some time since I first read this book (about three years), and after re-reading it, I found it just as well-written and entertaining, but was even more baffled about the right-wing tendencies of its author.

Essentially, the thesis of the book is as follows: Michael Graham, a southerner, always thought that the North was a place where good ole boy politickin' was abhorred, intellectualism is celebrated, and idiocy was absent. But after living there and observing Northerners like me (although I live in Tennessee as the profile says, I was born and raised in Chicago), he has concluded that the general lunacy that is commonplace in the South is actually commonplace everywhere, Northerners just don't realize it or admit it if they do.

Good premise because I agree wholeheartedly, though I do have to believe that this is more prevalent down south, having lived here for six years and counting and finding stereotypes reinforced everywhere. But anyway, the book itself goes beyond the premise to a much deeper and effective arguement, and that is the demise of intellectualism in the country as a whole is not something to be celebrated or treated lightly. He consistently, and hilariously, points out example after example of things that are thought of as trivial, or not representative of the status quo, being just the opposite. People like to think that diminishing social standards and scary addictions to pop culture trash are not really that bad, that they are just little guilty pleasures. Like Graham, I am very troubled by that notion, and have never understood why the intellectual in this country is mocked and admonished, rather than thought highly of.

Graham touches on this as well when he says that the root of Southern anger at the North lies in the fact that not only do Southerners know that Northerners think of themselves as superior and more intelligent, but that Southerners often suspect that the "Yankeeboys" are right, although they'll never admit it. He touches on the idiocy of many fundamentalist Southern religious groups, where he produces one of my favorite quotes about groups like that which is, "In the South, the true measure of devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ is to be a complete and utter idiot on his behalf."

In the end, I really enjoyed the main points of the book, but did not appreciate how Graham framed the context, which in some instances morphes into a right-wing slant, with rants on extreme multiculturalism and school choice. But what really is odd, the previous sentence nonwithstanding, Graham comes of as fairly moderate in this book, politically speaking. All of the values he champions in this book, like the praise of the intellectual, his anger at the rejection of reason, evidence and science in favor of "my way or the highway", his admonishment of extreme religion and faith as the guiding forces in life, and his bemoaning of decisions and appointments made through friendship and back-slapping relationships instead of by quantifiable results (among other examples in the book), are all thoroughly rejected in the neoconservative power we have today in America. And while Graham tries to be fairly moderate in the book, I have visited his website frequently and listened to his show a few times and he is very much a supporter of modern conservativism. That just makes me wonder why, being that he identifies himself with a group that has made no secret of championing what Graham says he hates most.

All in all though, a very effective book and can still be enjoyed by liberals who appreciate a well-written and defended conservative viewpoint, although they might not always agree.

49 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars There's nothing new here..., December 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War (Hardcover)

Michael Graham - a radio talk-show host and former PR guy for the Republican Party - obviously wants to follow in the footsteps of HL Mencken, Dennis Miller, and Michael Moore as an acid-penned critic of "redneck" Southern culture. Like these gentlemen, Graham seems to believe that if you can't say something nasty about other people, then you shouldn't say anything at all. Graham grew up in a tiny rural village in South Carolina and, to put it politely, he hated it. This book is filled with every imaginable put-down of white, native-born Southerners. If you read this book you'll get the impression that Southern culture is responsible for everything from the Bubonic Plague to crabgrass in your lawn. And, most of Graham's comments contain nothing that most Southerners (and non-Southerners) haven't heard before - Southerners are still refighting the Civil War, they're racist and inbred, they don't like "book learnin" and despise intellectuals, etc. Graham's one unique twist on this tiresome refrain is that the South's backward, ignorant "redneck" ideas have swept the nation - he's as contemptuous of Northern yuppies and California academics as he is of his native region. According to Graham, the South has "won" the Civil War and Civil Rights battles by successfully exporting its racism, segregation, anti-intellectual beliefs, and "irrational" religious beliefs to the rest of the nation. For proof, he offers examples such as NASCAR (which, Graham announces with horror, is now the top spectator sport in the country), the "politically-correct", anti-free speech mindset at universities such as Cal-Berkeley and "Hahvud", and the growing "I am a victim" mentality among minorities nationwide, which he claims started with white Southerners after their defeat in the Civil War. Graham even sees the victory of "backward" Southern ideals in TV shows such as "Sex and the City", which he claims is basically just the story of Southern-style "trailer trash" women who happen to live in the Big Apple (and dress somewhat better). Some of Graham's schtick is admittedly funny, but there's nothing really new here (If you've seen or read Jeff Foxworthy's "You may be a redneck if..." books or comedy routines, you've seen most of Graham's stereotypes). Graham is also wrong in some of his historical claims - Northern racism wasn't "exported" from the South, but existed long before the Civil War. Bottom line: some of this book is funny, but Graham's endless pages of put-downs (of Southerners AND Northerners) gets repetitive really fast, and he adds very little that's new as the book goes along - it's basically one long, Dennis Miller-style rant on the same subject.