The Most Southern Place on Earth
and over 360,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son (Library of Southern Civilization) by William Alexander Percy |
by Thomas C. Holt
|
by Chris Crowe
|
by Pete Daniel
|
by Gerard Helferich
|
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is a solidly researched and well-written book that delineates one of the most disturbing chapters and places in American history. It deserves to be widely read not only as a story of this most southern place but also as a story of the United States."--The Journal of Southwest Georgia History
"The work is best as a clear-thinking and sensitive history of racial and worker exploitation and as an argument that such exploitation has not been a great exception to the rest of American history but a particularly vivid culmination of it."--Ted Ownby, University of Mississippi
"Well researched, great little details and stories make it fascinating. A good historical perspective of Delta region."--Ron Bernthal, Sullivan County Community College
"Fascinating."--Philip Scranton, Rutgers University
"Well written, and an excellent addition to the literature on the South since the Civil War. A must read!"--J. Paul Leslie, Nicholls State University
"A lively, compassionate and disturbing book based on a wealth of sources."--The New York Times Book Review
"Extensive, engrossing, and literate."--Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University
"An enthralling new history....Cobb's well-researched, well-written book is 'must' reading for anyone interested in the Delta."--Lexington Herald-Leader
"Cobb...painstakingly lays out the historical roots for the Delta's huge impact on American history....Fascinating history."--Fanfare
"Fulfilling the ironic meaning of the title, James Cobb provides the first comprehensive history of the Mississippi Delta to appear in half a century....His exposition of the often misunderstood sharecrop and tenant systems is a much needed contribution, but the sections devoted to the Delta's distinctive cultural life, both white and black, are outstanding. Like some of the notable works by Delta writers, whom Cobb discusses, The Most Southern Place on Earth will take its place among the classic texts in Southern studies."--Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida, author of Honor and Violence in the Old South
"The work is best as a clear-thinking and sensitive history of racial and worker exploitation and as an argument that such exploitation has not been a great exception to the rest of American history but a particularly vivid culmination of it."--Ted Ownby, University of Mississippi
"Well researched, great little details and stories make it fascinating. A good historical perspective of Delta region."--Ron Bernthal, Sullivan County Community College
"Fascinating."--Philip Scranton, Rutgers University
"Well written, and an excellent addition to the literature on the South since the Civil War. A must read!"--J. Paul Leslie, Nicholls State University
"A lively, compassionate and disturbing book based on a wealth of sources."--The New York Times Book Review
"Extensive, engrossing, and literate."--Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University
"An enthralling new history....Cobb's well-researched, well-written book is 'must' reading for anyone interested in the Delta."--Lexington Herald-Leader
"Cobb...painstakingly lays out the historical roots for the Delta's huge impact on American history....Fascinating history."--Fanfare
"Fulfilling the ironic meaning of the title, James Cobb provides the first comprehensive history of the Mississippi Delta to appear in half a century....His exposition of the often misunderstood sharecrop and tenant systems is a much needed contribution, but the sections devoted to the Delta's distinctive cultural life, both white and black, are outstanding. Like some of the notable works by Delta writers, whom Cobb discusses, The Most Southern Place on Earth will take its place among the classic texts in Southern studies."--Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida, author of Honor and Violence in the Old South
Product Description
"Cotton obsessed, Negro obsessed," Rupert Vance called it in 1935. "Nowhere but in the Mississippi Delta," he said, "are antebellum conditions so nearly preserved." This crescent of bottomlands between Memphis and Vicksburg, lined by the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, remains in some ways what it was in 1860: a land of rich soil, wealthy planters, and desperate poverty--the blackest and poorest counties in all the South. And yet it is a cultural treasure house as well--the home of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Charley Pride, Walker Percy, Elizabeth Spencer, and Shelby Foote. Painting a fascinating portrait of the development and survival of the Mississippi Delta, a society and economy that is often seen as the most extreme in all the South, James C. Cobb offers a comprehensive history of the Delta, from its first white settlement in the 1820s to the present. Exploring the rich black culture of the Delta, Cobb explains how it survived and evolved in the midst of poverty and oppression, beginning with the first settlers in the overgrown, disease-ridden Delta before the Civil War to the bitter battles and incomplete triumphs of the civil rights era.
In this comprehensive account, Cobb offers new insight into "the most southern place on earth," untangling the enigma of grindingly poor but prolifically creative Mississippi Delta.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
› Visit Amazon's James C. Cobb Page
› Visit Amazon's James C. Cobb Page
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
Early travelers' accounts did not exaggerate the difficulties inherent in clearing and settling such a swampy wilderness, but those who wrote off the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta's long-term prospects for development failed to appreciate the importance that the remarkable fertility of tis continually replenished alluvial soil would assume in a regional, national, and international economy grown ravenous for cotton. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
harnessed revolution, plantation kingdom, testing ground for democracy, plantation frontier, dollar cotton, swampy wilderness, labor stability, black farm workers, cotton kingdom, black upper class, levee camps, levee construction Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Washington County, Mississippi Delta, New Deal, Bolivar County, Coahoma County, World War, David Cohn, United States, Leflore County, Holmes County, Walter Sillers, New York, Robert Johnson, Sunflower County, Tunica County, Hodding Carter, Wade Hampton, William Alexander Percy, Yazoo Delta, Aaron Henry, Freedman's Bureau, Issaquena County, New Orleans, Old South, Will Percy New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Early travelers' accounts did not exaggerate the difficulties inherent in clearing and settling such a swampy wilderness, but those who wrote off the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta's long-term prospects for development failed to appreciate the importance that the remarkable fertility of tis continually replenished alluvial soil would assume in a regional, national, and international economy grown ravenous for cotton. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
harnessed revolution, plantation kingdom, testing ground for democracy, plantation frontier, dollar cotton, swampy wilderness, labor stability, black farm workers, cotton kingdom, black upper class, levee camps, levee construction Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Washington County, Mississippi Delta, New Deal, Bolivar County, Coahoma County, World War, David Cohn, United States, Leflore County, Holmes County, Walter Sillers, New York, Robert Johnson, Sunflower County, Tunica County, Hodding Carter, Wade Hampton, William Alexander Percy, Yazoo Delta, Aaron Henry, Freedman's Bureau, Issaquena County, New Orleans, Old South, Will Percy New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 80
books:
See all 80 books this book cites
65
books
cite this book:
See all 65 books citing this book
- Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son (Library of Southern Civilization) by William Alexander Percy on 6 pages
- The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash on 5 pages
- This Crooked Way (Voices of the South) by Elizabeth Spencer on 4 pages
- Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture by William Barlow on 4 pages
- Where I Was Born and Raised by David Cohn on 4 pages
See all 80 books this book cites
- The Transformation of Plantation Politics: Black Politics, Concentrated Poverty, And Social Capital in the Mississippi Delta (Suny Series in African American Studies) by Sharon D. Wright Austin on 4 pages
- Americans: A Collision of Histories by Edward Countryman on 4 pages
- Americans: A Collision of Histories by Edward Countryman in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers by Adam Nossiter in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal (Constitutional Conflicts) by David E.Bernstein in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 65 books citing this book
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
|
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
67% buy the item featured on this page: The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity $16.96 |
 |
22% buy Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America $12.53 |
 |
4% buy Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son (Library of Southern Civilization) $15.71 |
 |
3% buy Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity $12.89 |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Books > History > Americas > United States > 19th Century
- Books > History > Americas > United States > 20th Century
Look for Similar Items by Subject
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. |
