Unlocking V.O. Key Jr.: "Southern Politics" for the Twenty-First Century

by Angie Maxwell, Todd G. Shields (Editor)

Over sixty years ago, political scientist V.O. Key Jr. published his seminal work, Southern Politics in State and Nation . Key's book redefined the field of southern politics and remains one of the most cited and influential works in twentieth-century political science and southern history. In Unlocking V.O. Key Jr. , prominent southern scholars in history, political science, and southern and American studies reconsider Key's analysis, debating his omissions as well as highlighting the timeless elements of his work. Charles Reagan Wilson, Kari Frederickson, and Pearl K. Ford argue that Key's exclusion of religion, violence, and African American political participation altered the field of southern politics. Keith Gaddie and Justin Wert draw attention to Key's methodological innovations, while Margaret Reid questions Key's limited and gendered vision of the southern electorate. Harold Stanley discusses the complexity of teaching Key in the twenty-first century. Byron E. Shafer and Richard Johnston argue for the role that class and the economy played in the realignment of the South with the Republican Party, while Dan T. Carter points to race as the driving factor in this major shift. Susan MacManus tracks immigration trends in the region to explain contemporary southern political behavior. Supported with a foreword by Byron E. Shafer that provides an overview of Key's major contributions as a political scientist, and concluding with Wayne Parent's discussion of Key and the contemporary student, Unlocking V.O. Key Jr. is a must-read companion to the classic Southern Politics in State and Nation.

285 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Angie Maxwell is the Director of the Diane Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society, an associate professor of political science, and holder of the Diane Blair Endowed Professorship in Southern Studies at the University of Arkansas. Maxwell is a Truman Scholar and received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas. Her research and commentary have been featured in Henry Louis Gates’ Reconstruction on PBS and on MSNBC’s “The Reid Report” and “The Cycle.” Maxwell is the author of The Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority, and the Politics of Whiteness (UNC, 2014) which won the V. O. Key Award for best book in southern politics and the C. Hugh Holman Honorable Mention for best book in southern literary criticism. She is the co-editor of Unlocking V. O. Key, Jr. (Arkansas, 2011), The Ongoing Burden of Southern History (LSU, 2013), and The Legacy of Second Wave Feminism in American Politics (Palgrave, 2018), and editor of the new edition of Ralph McGill’s A Church, A School (South Carolina, 2012). Her recent articles have appeared in Southern Cultures, Presidential Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Black Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Race and Social Problems, Politics, Groups, and Identities, Social Science Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vox, and Huffington Post. Her new book, The Long Southern Strategy will be published in June by Oxford University Press.