The southern way of life : meanings of culture and civilization in the American South Cover Image

The southern way of life : meanings of culture and civilization in the American South / Charles Reagan Wilson.

Meanings of culture and civilization in the American South (portion title)

Summary:

"Since the eighteenth century, a vast range of thinkers, artists, writers, and critics have wrestled with the notion that something distinct characterizes life in the American South. But in this sweeping new intellectual and cultural history, Charles Reagan Wilson reveals that there has never been a singular understanding of this 'southern way of life.' Considering nearly three centuries of regional expression in history, literature, music, recreation, religion, and more, produced by those inside and outside the region, Wilson argues that the consciousness associated with the American South is best understood by examining three related yet discrete ideas that have evolved over time: southern civilization, the southern way of life, and southern living. The story he tells is not of an essential South but of one marked by contestations, contingencies, and change."-- Provided by publisher.

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Record details

ISBN: 9781469664989
ISBN: 1469664984
Physical Description: 598 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
Publisher: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2022]
Copyright: ©2022

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 517-573) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Part I. Southern civilization. ch. 1. Southern civilization: imagining the southern way through reconstruction -- ch. 2. Reimagining southern civilization: adapting civilization to new regional, national, and international contexts -- pt. II. Southern way of life. ch. 3. Agrarian way: regional consciousness and southern tradition -- ch. 4. Searching for the southern way in a time of transition: culture, civilization, and way of life in the interwar years -- ch. 5. The rising racial way: the evolving southern racial context in the interwar years -- ch. 6. Revolutions and counterrevolutions: challenging and defending the southern way in the Civil Rights Era -- pt. III. Southern living. ch. 7. Imagining new ways for the south: adjustment to change, economic ways, interracial ways, conservative ways -- ch. 8. Southern living: constructing southern ways in the Contemporary Era -- ch. 9. Into the twenty-first century: multicultural southern living.