This review is for: The Southern Tradition : The Achievement and Limitations of an American Conservatism
I really like and admire the reviews previously posted and written by R. Setiff and Greg Taylor. They do a good job of presenting the basic content -- especially for the first two chapters of Eugene Genovese's book. They also present the information in a manner that is probably clearer than the actual way Genovese presented it.
I will not retrace the factual content of the two previous reviewers' reports.
Without retracing their steps, I want to say that the first chapter does a wonderful job of presenting the Southern Tradition in its historical development - from John Randolph of Roanoke, John Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, all the way through Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom as well as Richard Weaver and M.E. Bradford. However, if you expected to learn what constitutes the unqualified essential elements making up what is appropriately called the Southern Tradition, they will not be found in the first chapter and the reader will be disappointed. The reader will find a succinct, subtle and penetrating history of the South's "ideologies," however, like examining a diamond under a jeweler's eyeglass.
Thus, a reader expecting to be presented with what is the Southern Tradition right out of the gate will be disappointed. The first chapter is one big intellectual tease.
However, by the time I reached the end of the second chapter, I began wondering why I even bothered reading a book on the Southern Tradition when the second chapter analyzes the hell out of the various golden threads the author has found in his extensive research, reading and writing about the history of the South, a chapter wholly devoted to showing just how many flaws, holes, and missing parts exist in the Southern viewpoint, causing any reasonable reader to feel that any hope for the South's survival is moot -- because evidence for global, international schemes (Global Communism?) for centralized control of both the economy as well as the people living in this federalized corporatocracy is overwhelming. Yes, as the other reviewers have stated, Genovese's analysis is objective, but his second chapter ends with only the echo of William Henry Trescott's warning that "the only viable solution to moral as well as political and economic degeneracy must come from a struggle to shape the nation-state itself." How likely is that to occur and who is going to do it?
It's in the third and final chapter of the book that Eugene Genovese outlines the Southern Tradition in its essential planks, and almost as an aside, too, not directly. In this third chapter, the author says that the Southern Tradition consists of an opposition to finance capitalism (and this fact or "principle" is born out in the first two chapters, much as all other planks or "principles" mentioned in this third chapter are prepared for and laid out in the first two chapters). Another element is the South's opposition to radical individualism, support for broad property ownership, socially determined moral constraints, adherence to Christian individualism, a rejection of internationalism, support of every people to develop its own genius, and "to be our brothers' keepers, but only as individuals or through families, churches and local communities."
But, as was already stated or if not already hinted at, Genovese's objectivity about the Southern Tradition is such that he knows, and consequently the reader comes to learn, that the Southern Tradition is riddled with contradictions, flaws, and dangers, no different from any other political or ideological camp.
That is what Genovese asserts. But is this really the case?
Genovese's analyses can frighten you into thinking he has mastered all the facts that might apply.
But how well does Genovese discuss distributionism as an economic plan or alternative to capitalism or socialism? Answer: Little and poorly. Genovese is liberal enough in his "conservatism" to make it laughably implausible to discuss anything to do with National Socialism. After all, Hitler was just an evil racist, wasn't he?
And why is it that while Genovese says the Southern Tradition supports "every people to develop its own genius," the conservative White people of the South are deemed "white supremacists" by him merely for fostering a local culture belonging to a White people, while saying nothing critical at all about Black or Latino or Chinese cultures attempting to develop their own genius in the United States? Anti-racism is anti-White, no? Absolutely nothing should prevent the United States from placing "racial discrimination" beyond the pale, he says on page 96. What assumptions are behind this absolutistic claim, do you think?
It seems to be the case that while Eugene Genovese has tried his level best to convert himself from a Marxist Communist to a Southern conservative and Roman Catholic, he did not root out all of his former ideological premises and uses some of his Communist ideological assumptions as part of his exploration, analysis, and presentation of the Southern Tradition.
Eugene Genovese targets David Duke as an emblem of the worst modern representative of the Southern Tradition, totally overlooking the fact that David Duke is totally against Internationalism, particularly Communist-Marxist internationalism, and David Duke doesn't advocate "white supremacy."
Could it be that Genovese's pro-Jewish/pro-Israel feelings have blinded him from seeing the Southern Tradition 100% objectively?
While Genovese is in favor of some kinds of Southern prejudice, he won't sanction any kind of pride or preference for his own race and will rail against anyone who openly does.
* * *
As a postscript, I want to say that I'm glad this book was short and condensed. It was a tough go, and Genovese's erudition on things Southern is wide. I collected two Post-It notes of book references for future reading, written in tiny print, just from the first two chapters, especially the first chapter.
That being said, an accessible exploration of the Southern Tradition I recommend for readers is "The Oral Character of Southern Literature: Explaining the Distinctiveness of Regional Texts" by Clay Morton, a true Southerner. There is more to the Southern tradition than just political and spiritual values; there's also the oral tradition in Southern literature. While the book is difficult to find due to the book's price, borrowing it from the library or through interlibrary loan will provide the reader with an awareness of the Southern Tradition in a way that goes straight to the heart, providing more hope than Genovese's book does and it includes a lot of Southern history as well in the revelation of the oral tradition of the South.
* * *
Another fine and excellent work that definitely spells out the Southern Tradition and why it is valuable is "The South under siege, 1830-2000: A history of the relations between the North and the South" by Frank Conner. It's a tome but oh-so-clear and riveting to read.
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