The New Mind of the South

by Tracy Thompson

There are those who say the South has disappeared. But in her groundbreaking, thought-provoking exploration of the region, Tracy Thompson, a Georgia native and Pulitzer Prize finalist, asserts that it has merely drawn on its oldest an ability to adapt and transform itself. Thompson spent years traveling through the region and discovered a South both amazingly similar and radically different from the land she knew as a child. African Americans who left en masse for much of the twentieth century are returning in huge numbers, drawn back by a mix of ambition, family ties, and cultural memory. Though Southerners remain more churchgoing than other Americans, the evangelical Protestantism that defined Southern culture up through the 1960s has been torn by bitter ideological schisms. The new South is ahead of others in absorbing waves of Latino immigrants, in rediscovering its agrarian traditions, in seeking racial reconciliation, and in reinventing what it means to have roots in an increasingly rootless global culture. Drawing on mountains of data, interviews, and a whole new set of historic archives, Thompson upends stereotypes and fallacies to reveal the true heart of the South today—a region still misunderstood by outsiders and even by its own people. In that sense, she is honoring the tradition inaugurated by Wilbur Joseph Cash in 1941 in his classic, The Mind of the South. Cash’s book was considered the virtual bible on the origins of Southern identity and its transformation through time. Thompson has written its sequel for the twenty-first century.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, American History, Sociology, Southern, Race

289 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2013

About the author

I am a journalist, book author and editor. My most recent book, The New Mind of the South (Simon & Schuster), is a look at what my native region is becoming in the 21st century, and why it continues to be so misunderstood by Southerners and non-Southerners alike.

Before I started doing what I do now, I was a newspaper reporter for 15 years—-eight years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and seven years at the Washington Post. I've also written about mental illness, both my own and other people's, discovering in the process that one of mankind's most enduring afflictions is still shrouded in stigma, even today. If you ask me, that's just crazy! Those books, The Beast and The Ghost in the House, are what writers call "well reviewed," meaning the critics liked them but they never came close to the best-seller list. But they're still in print, and you can order them from my favorite independent bookstore, Politics and Prose, at https://www.politics-prose.com/.

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having grown up in the South but not having lived there for many years, I am more and more fascinated by it. Maybe it's the current atrocious political climate that seems to try to bring to bear on the South a light that it really can't rightly lay claim to anymore. Maybe it's all the Faulkner. Hard to say, but I do like reading about the land of my birth, especially in so-called fresh takes.
Thompson's endeavor is admirable: a Southerner herself, she goes back after many years to see what all the fuss is about and tease out all those zany legacies (slavery, racism, religion, and racism) and see what the heck is going on down there. Her strength lies in her refreshing ability to tease apart all these historical strands and see what they mean for people today, or, better, how they weave all those legacies into their daily lives. She tackles evangelicals, Confederate memory, and all the usual shit. She does this well. What the book lacks is a true delving into the South. When Thompson drives through collapsing, half-abandoned wasteland towns in the deep south, I wanted her to stop her car, get out, and shoot the shit with whoever the hell lives there. A true assessment of the South would be dipping into the lives of ordinary folks. Unfortunately, much of her personal focus is on academics and others in her particular strata. Had there been more on-the-ground stuff, this would've been a much more satisfying read. As everyone knows, the "mind" of any place can hardly be assessed by those who think themselves "experts". I'll take Leroy the Citgo attendant in Boarass, Alabama over a Yale scholar any day.

[H. P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thompson gives two catalysts in writing this book. First, she discovers that one of her ancestors was a Union sympathizer. As someone who grew up in southern Appalachia hearing (inflated) stories about how much Union support up there, I was a bit bemused at her overreaction. Thompson’s second catalyst is the disappearance of sorts of the South. This is certainly true, but only to a point. W.J. Cash’s closing paragraph still rings true today. Thompson sees the South as defined by, first and foremost, two cultural institutions: slavery and evangelical Protestantism. The small fact that slavery no longer exists does little to lessen its influence today. The ruts and scars are still there. The South has always been religious, and even as the ubiquity of religion has faded its intensity has grown.

There is much to be said for The New Mind of the South. Thompson recognizes the strange dichotomy that the South retains much of its unique nature despite rapid change. She even makes it one of the major themes of the book. Much of the “mind of the South” can be found in HOW it changes—resisting it with all its might, sudden and rapid change, then acting as if it had always been that way. I think she really has something here. Thompson liberally introduces good social science on most topics. The very recent influx of Hispanic immigrants gets attention (and may be the best section of the book) and Thompson (facially, at least) recognizes that black Southerners are also Southerners. She admirably talks not only about lynching but about how it has historically been viewed—much like the crimes of communist regimes, its evil is both without serious question and at the same time studiously ignored. She recognizes that racism and Southern-style political conservatism are separate entities, the waning interest of evangelicals in actual evangelism, and how Southern populism was hobbled by racism. Her prose can be biting: “If F. Scott Fitzgerald was right—if the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function—then the South in those years was doing a phenomenal job of raising the national IQ.”

Admittedly, what Thompson gets right makes up the bulk of the book. But she gets too far much wrong. She does two things well: present social science and the attendant data and ruminate on the “mind of the South” in the abstract. When she veers away from that she gets herself in trouble. Her knowledge of Southern politics is somewhat lacking. As to economics she shows no understanding whatsoever (she refers to the trading of cheap labor for money as a “Faustian bargain”). She readily displays those old Southern peccadilloes of narrow-mindedness and an incapacity for analysis. She thinks adopting a foreign child and watching Fox News are irreconcilable and an example of cognitive dissonance (so much for the conservatism isn’t necessarily racism point). Thompson claims the influence of the South led to “radical” (that in itself incorrect given the role of the government during the bulk of American history) ideas about eliminating government. But Southern conservatives have never been the primary driver of the small government faction of the party. She thinks the best analogue to the modern immigration debate is the debate over slavery. A better one is the debate over immigration from the late 19th/early 20th century. She thinks the Occupy Wall Street movement “borrows its tactics from the civil rights movement, and its rhetoric to the outrage of early-twentieth century Southern populists.” Somewhere Martin Luther King, Jr. and William Jennings Bryan are rolling over in their graves. She calls the old Populist platform ahead of its time for proposing government ownership of railroads and the prohibition of speculation in farm commodities, despite the fact that neither was ever enacted on any kind of broad scale and remain awful policy. Perhaps most egregiously, she faults Atlanta’s leadership for failing to provide “affordable housing.” Any person of meager means who has lived in D.C. and Atlanta (or, as I have, Chicago and Houston) would attest to the greater affordability of housing in the latter (although of course I mean affordable in its plain sense, rather than its more particular, non-useful sense).

But there is a far more damning indictment. W.J. Cash (a journalist himself) wrote as an advocate, an attorney, unabashed in his bias and his argument. Thompson more often engages in journalistic obfuscation. No one was safe from Cash’s barbs. Everyone is safe from Thompson’s barbs but white Southerners. To her great credit, Thompson recognizes that black Southerners are also Southerners. That shows in spurts, for example as she points out how integral black churches were to the Civil Rights movement, but black Southerners are for long stretches forgotten, and never given the same critical treatment as white Southerners. The black remigration is mentioned but not explored in nearly enough depth. Similarly, she adroitly compares Southern culture to Mexican culture, but has nothing critical to say of Mexican-Americans. Too much escapes attention altogether. Thompson ignores the people of Appalachia even more thoroughly than Cash did. The fall of the mills and the mill towns with them was worthy of attention. Atlanta is admittedly the capital of the “New South,” but what about Charlotte turning itself into a banking center, Nashville turning itself into the country music capital, Houston and Dallas riding oil and natural gas from boom-and-bust to a more permanent boom, and the different responses of New Orleans, Tuscaloosa, and Nashville to natural disasters?

The New Mind of the South is worth the price of admission if only for its more recent vintage, but it still pales beside classic works like The Mind of the South, Albion’s Seed, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, and Confederates in the Attic.

[Mythili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tracy Thompson grew up in Georgia, and concluded that the simplest way to deal with the cognitive dissonance of being from the South was to “shove the whole thing into a mental drawer and get on with your life.” As a career journalist, though, it was only a matter of time until her need for deeper answers caught up with her. In The New Mind of the South, Thompson sets out to meet historian Carl Degler’s challenge: “No Southerner, so far as I know, has yet seen fit to write about the ‘two-ness’ of Southerners.” Thompson travels through 11 states of the old Confederacy on a mission to make sense of the South. Plumbing her own family history, she learns of a horrific lynching that took place just 20 miles from her great-grandparents’ residence and discovers that a direct ancestor was a Union sympathizer. Thompson’s casual anecdotes and observations unravel the South’s contradictory historical layers but also chart the impact of more recent economic and demographic shifts on the region. The New Mind of the South is a clear-eyed, deeply considered look at the evolution of a part of the country that, more than a century after the end of the Civil War, continues to remain something of a foreign entity to rest of the nation. And though Thompson is unsparing in her critical examination of the South’s history of racial discrimination and violence, she remains optimistic. “The twenty-first-century South promises to be the region where Americans of different races learn, at last, how to honestly discuss both the present and the past with each other,” she predicts. Her own honesty leads the way.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles...

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was born, raised, educated in Georgia and have lived near Washington, DC for years. I couldn't help but think, if you want to start an argument with your relatives at Thanksgiving, well then, this book is for you.

Her title is similar to W.J.Cash's THE MIND OF THE SOUTH published in 1941 and I read it, too. The South can be misunderstood and both authors offer their perspectives from different eras. Is it the Civil War or War Between the States? Why did poor Southern whites (non slave owners) align themselves with the plantation/landed gentry (slave owners)? I did like how Cash discussed Appalachia and the fall of the mill town industry.

Whether you are liberal, conservative, independent, moderate, tea partier or from the North, South or elsewhere, both books are worth reading . Thompson's is the easier read. Both explore the cognitive dissonance and dual identities of denizens below the Mason-Dixon line have as patriotic Americans and Southerners. Both authors have written a compelling sociological analysis. QUIT YAWNING! They are ideas worth considering.

Thompson discusses the contradictory history and complicated mindset of Southerners. Fiercely independent, patriotic (most of our young soldiers fighting our wars come from Southern states), suspicious of the Federal government, religious which ranges from tolerance to rabid fundamentalism the South is a mystery to outsiders and even those who live there. She covers race, politics, immigration, religion, evangelicals, lynchings, slavery, Jim Crow laws, state's rights vs. slavery being taught in schools in the 50s & 60s.

Do Southerners have a lack of self-awareness and resist change or are they actually resilient and more racially egalitarian than many Northerners and other parts of the country? Has the South lost its soul and agrarian roots with the urbanization of large cities such as Atlanta?

There has been progress on race but still a long way to go. The game changer is happening now: immigration. She indicates that Georgia and North Carolina have the largest immigration growth, mostly Hispanics. Plus there are many African Americans who left in the 20th Century & their families are returning in substantial numbers.

What is the New South or what will be the new South? There is much to consider. I did not find Thompson a Southern apologist as a few reviewers have indicated. I think her love for her former home shines through. I don't agree with all premises but an open-minded contemplation of the issues got me thinking about my beloved South's past, present and future. It's a hopeful view.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

As luck would have it, I was reading this book as the ginned-up controversy over Brad Paisley's "Accidental Racist" had its moment. The bad faith and inept revisionism of so much Southern history is one of Thompson's themes, and she explores how the Lost Cause mythology and its attendant lies -- i.e., the Civil War was about states' rights, not slavery -- started almost before the ink was dry on the surrender documents at Appomattox. When she's not tweaking Confederate nostalgists and apologists, Thompson talks about the demographic changes underway down south, the roots of evangelic religion, and the history of Atlanta as "the city too busy to hate." Thompson's writing is tart and often very funny. An excellent book.

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

The less you know about Southern history, the more you'll enjoy it. That's a definition not critique the book. If you know the academic literature of the past, oh, thirty years, then the tension between historical fact and Southern identity is old news - a point Thompson acknowledges (and attributes to academia) extensively throughout. That said, Thompson's breezy, ingratiating style and Southern upbringing allows for a freewheeling examination usually absent from books on this topic. I suspect that many non-academics and college students in the right setting would benefit tremendously from the way Thompson examines the roles of history, memory and identity in modern Southern life, particularly when she discusses the white South's persistent evasion of its violent, racial past.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. So underrated. Even a passing study of the civil war/civil rights and the current politics of the south leaves any thinking person scratching her head. As Shelby Foote said in Ken Burns Civil War series, "Southerners are so odd about the war."

Tracy Thompson just tells it like it is. A native white southerner, she explains why the appearance of the south is so perplexing. She explains how this came to be and how it persists, among other things.

This book is a snapshot of the South RIGHT NOW. It would be best read right now. It is also short and brilliantly written so it is a pleasure to read.

Read this book.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! Absolutely loved it. The author's voice is very readable, and I loved getting insight into questions I've had about the land I've called home for over a decade.I would highly recommend this book to transplants, people thinking of moving South, Southerners who are open to self-reflection about their customs, or anyone just interested in learning a bit more about a fascinating place with a challenging history.

Complete Review here:
http://thesaucywenchesbookclub.blogsp...

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed in this book, having been a great fan of WJ Cash's "The Mind of the South." Ms. Thompson's book seemed a bit too perfunctory, and many chapters were filled with rather dry statistical information from Pew Research Group. I expected more.

[Alex Poston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thompson considers whether Southern culture can survive growing multi-ethnicity, Big Ag’s elimination of the independent farmer + depopulation of rural communities, and the disappearance of the Lost Cause w attendant racism from standard education. She argues against a fear that these factors will create “a homogenized landscape of chain restaurants and shopping centers” and per Egerton’s The Americanization of Dixie, “increasing depersonalization, and a steady erosion of the sense of place, of community, of belonging” (p. 32). She concludes that Southern identity has the potential to persist in altered form. She says the South (a conglomerate of cultures she identified w the 11 confederate states) will undergo mutual transformation with new foreign elements to its cultural makeup. I found this book an informative sampling of some recent cultural shifts in the South, but I thought her faith in the South’s ability to endure modern homogenization per Egerton was unsupported. My hometown is certainly struggling, pretty unsuccessfully, to maintain an individual sense of place or Southern identity in the face of an increasingly homogenized cityscape and influx of new residents from outside the state. Thompson, in my reading, failed to provide evidence that the South is exceptional in its ability to withstand the flattening effect of globalization and urbanization. This is a decent read, but I think the title made me expect a more ambitious cultural-historical argument.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thompson's book is basically an updated version of V.S. Naipaul's "A Turn in the South" from 1985, more than it's an updated version of Wilbur Cash's "The Mind of the South" from 1941.
As a Southerner (unlike Naipaul), Thompson reflects personally on what it means to be a Southerner in the modern day, as well as a survey on how certain areas in the South have changed (either modernized and completely unrecognizable [to her], i.e. Atlanta, or withering away and trying to survive, i.e. Mississippi delta region).
In the end the book does come off as a lament for what was lost, and what its being replaced with, as opposed to how much the region has pulled itself into the 21st century and become a very diverse and growing section of the US, which is worth celebrating.

[Spencer Belyea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm fascinated by the South, and am drawn to any analysis and insight of this complex region. As a native Southerner re-examining her home region after some time away, Thompson had a good eye for things that are seemingly dissonant and exploring how they could co-exist; this is one of the major themes of the book. However, I found some sections to be quite interesting, and some to be lacking. Plus, there was more repetition than I think was necessary. There was nothing inherently bad about the book, but nothing that made me love it either. It was about average, hence my rating.

[TroTro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this because of the confederate statue controversy. This book was very interesting and written by a southern about southerners. The story of Atlanta is eye-opening. Highly recommend. Well-written - reads like butter.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting survey of modern south on race, income, disparity, separateness, olympics, transportation.

[John Beall · Rating 4 out of 5]

And frank insight into the evolving southern identity and an exploration of what it really means to be southern from a unique and detached point of view

[Cicely · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book, and thought it had a lot of promise. As someone who has never spent more than three consecutive weeks outside the great state of Minnesota, I am equal parts fascinated and abhorred by "the South." Overall, I think the premise of the book extremely overpromised and underperformed. There wasn't really much meat to Thompson's argument (in fact, I'm not sure, after having read the entire thing, that I could concisely pinpoint what her argument was) - and there was a lot of "duh" for me. For example, I did not need a 250 page book to tell me that racism is a unique issue for Southerners! I also think the author stretched a bit too far in trying to make some of her arguments about "the South" when I think they were actually just commentary on things that happen everywhere - for example, the corporatization of farming and loss of agrarian culture.

That being said, there were some excellent tidbits. Thompson did an really good job of including interesting and relevant statistics - particularly about recent population changes in the South. As an aside - I think this book may have resonated a lot more with someone who did grow up in the South, as a nostalgic pull may have made up for some of the lack of substance.

[Alex Templeton · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. In this book, Thompson explores the culture of the South--her "homeland"--where it has come from, and how it has changed. It is both fascinating and repulsive how much of Southern culture and its fierce attitude towards the importance of states' rights has been largely due to entrenched racism. Thompson writes, effectively, of the trend to deny that slavery was the major cause of the Civil War, or, as many Southerners call it, The War Between the States. (As an aside, when I was talking about this with my husband, he reminded me of how, during a visit to Vicksburg, MS a few years ago, the tour guide on a house tour referred to "domestic servants" instead of "slaves", or some euphemism along those lines). I did find the chapter on the growing religious fundamentalism in the South a bit confusing, which was disappointing, as I'd like to understand the roots of a trend that at least seems to have unfortunately led to as much intolerance as it has positive community. Hopefully, the return of many African Americans and the immigration of more Hispanics to the area (both of which Thompson outlines) will change things. This is a nice companion read to the awesome "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author tries to cover too broad a topic in too short a space. Her urban perspective sat poorly with me as it usually does from any city-dweller, but that is the real divide in America today. Us rural folks know that we are losing, so much so that this book relegates the rural mindset as a bygone ideal. We're not quite dead yet.

The part about Southerns pretending that our history is rosier than it is is partially correct. Though those of us that acknowledge the unfortunate parts of our past don't see any other course than forward, using the knowledge of our past to avoid those mistakes in the future. However she made it seem like we collectively think lynching or slavery never existed. I don't know anyone that delusional.

Overall the book wasn't bad just a little short on depth and slightly biased to the urban view point.

I did receive this as a part of a Goodreads giveaway and thank the author for the book, which she signed with a short note...like a good southern lady should.

[Eric Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked reading this one a lot but the jury is still out on how I really feel about it. I've recently moved to the South and in some ways the book seems like it will be a good introduction to the sociology and culture of the place - perhaps cautionary at times. In others, it seems a little overly academic to me. I just don't know. It has made me think a great deal about my new home - which is exactly what I was hoping it would do. But I'm also trying to avoid having it make up my mind for me. It is very well written, intelligently researched and argued and the author has a deep understanding of the subject. But a lot of it is stuff that I'm hoping to find out for myself. I do find myself at times butting up against some of the attitudes that it points out, wanting to pipe up and argue with them, but then having to hold my tongue as I don't feel like I've been here long enough to have anything I say about it taken all that seriously. It could be that I will need to read it again after I've been here a year or so.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting non-fiction book about the culture of the American South. Of interest to me because I am Southern-but-not-really (even Thompson admits in a footnote that New Orleans is not really like the rest of the South... it being a blend of France and the Caribbean as well as American South). She examines the history, politics, culture, attitudes, etc. of the South from the past to the present, warts and all.

She probably offended some people in the course of writing this book, but who knows (it's hard to generalize about a place like this without getting into stereotyping). But it helps that she is Southern and you can tell she has an innate sympathy towards the South and Southern leanings in her own personality.

I particularly enjoyed the entire chapter about Atlanta--a city I don't know much about, but which is obviously hugely important to the future of the South. It is just so massive, and must exert a lot of influence over the entire region. I learned a lot about it I didn't know.

[Julie Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was eager to read this book when I saw that it was an update of the old classic The Mind of the South. I re read the old one, and found some of the language and opinions wince-worthy. The new book, updated with more current opinions and language, was an interesting read for someone who grew up in the South that followed the time period of the original. I think I was expecting more sociological and academic considerations of what makes this region of the country both the birthplace of so much art and music, philosophy and cuisine, and so much of the time also the target of disdain and derision from so many fellow Americans. The idea that the South is a dessert filled with hillbillies who resist progress is not fair, but also has some basis in fact. This book is a fun read, and those of us with ties to the South will recognize ourselves, especially the Southern Belles, but a more indepth look at the differences in reputation and reality might add to another edition. Enjoyable.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good look at the state of the south today. The title is a play on WJ Cash's classic book from the 40s, The Mind of the South. The author doesn't hide any of the blemishes (racism, poverty, the stupid need to still deny that slavery caused the Civil War) but she examines the significant ways the south today is changing. She looks at the remigration back of African Americans an the huge influx of Latino immigrants.

My only semi-complaint is that the book can't quite seem to decide if it wants to be a quick, breezy look at the topic or a more serious academic work. It ends up splitting the difference and I worry that casual readers will find it too deep and academics will find it not deep enough. But I liked it. (Maybe that proves I'm somewhere in between as well.)

I recommend the book for anyone interested in looking beyond the stereotypes to see what the south is like early in the 21st century.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It takes some big brass balls to play so directly off a seminal work like The Mind of the South. The author, whose home town is East Point, writes a relatively informal, somewhat slight assessment of the modern South. She hits the demographic high points, although she doesn't assess more general demographic changes (such as generational changes) in context. She talks about the decline of the rural south, and what has changed(and what hasn't) in Atlanta, using Atlanta as a stand-in for Southern urban cities for reasons that aren't entirely clear (except that she is attached to Atlanta). She synthesizes more academic work for the reader. It may serve as a starting point for those who know little about regional history and current demographics. I wished for a more academic and sharper analysis, but the book was engaging and breezy as a summary of basic trends. The successor to The Mind of the South it wasn't.

[Graham Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really what an academic book should be. Sources are easy to find but not obtrusive. The argument is made without being repetitive and without insisting on using academese. The writing is positively poetic sometimes, especially in describing the food. She does do that annoying thing where she insists part of her argument is unique, but it's not a forceful insistence like it is in so many academic works.

The only two things that kept me from giving this five stars were a) that anyone who wants to read a book like this would already know at least ~20% of the info presented and b) I'm just not sure about the choice to only give an in-depth picture of Atlanta when the book is so short and could easily have a similar portrayal of another, different southern city (or two).

[James Cage · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two pages made me laugh - always a good sign - and I recognized many of the feelings Thompson relates about the South. But she quickly settles into grinding axes. She lost me completely on p. 14: "It's not a big leap from modern proposals to require voters to produce some government-issued photo identification to literacy tests of the Jim Crow era." It's a gigantic, intercontinental-scale leap actually, and from there Thompson draws direct lines of moral authority from the civil rights struggle to Occupy America. Her argument boils down to this: all the stereotypes about the south (bigoted, stupid, global warming deniers, etc.) are TRUE ... about Republicans. But not everyone in the South is a Republican - there are also good people! So there!

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm about half way through tis charming book by Atlanta Journal-Consitution columnist Tracy Thompson. As a fellow non-Confederate Southerner, I find her takes compelling. In "Salsa With Your Grits," she's very discerning about a new wave of Hispanic immigration for season farm labor that is transforming a wide agricultural swath of the central South from Mississippi through Georgia to North Carolina. "Jesusland" portrays the Protestant Bible Belt and argues convincingly that the Fundamentalism we see now in the South is actually a re-import from western Southerners who fled the Dust Bowl to the Central Valley and suburbs of L.A.

[Cyrilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very personal for me and explained a lot about my childhood. Being a first-generation Southerner born of Yankee parents, I had no idea that much of what I was taught in school about American History was created out of whole cloth by a nice southern lady after the Civil War and she launched a campaign to have her version taught in every school. No wonder so many southerners so stubbornly cling to their version of history - it's what we were taught from 1st Grade on! The book made me feel a little warmer toward my native home, but also explained why it always made me so uncomfortable to live there...

[Richard B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a review of this book in the newspaper and was immediately interested. I was not disappointed. Thompson explores the modern connotations of what it means to be Southern, where these notions come from, paying equal weight to both the bad (very often talked about) and the good (less well documented). The author and her family are from the South, although the author moved away. The portrayal is fair and also raises so interesting questions about weather things like Big Agriculture are destroying all that is good in Southern culture. Anyone interested in this area of study should definitely pick up a copy of the book. Well worth a read.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I lived in Mississippi during my 20s and have been fascinated by the region ever since. I picked up this book with low expectations, but was completely blown away. Tracy Thompson, an Atlanta native, returns to the South and examines its culture and heritage anew, and traces them back in time like a dendrologist examining the rings of an old tree. Thompson, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, is bold and clear-eyed, and doesn't flinch away from controversy. I recommend this book to anyone interested in politics, urban planning, sprawl, agrarianism, Wendell Berry, Atlanta, and how we have become the red and blue nation that we are today. I couldn't put this down, and you might be able to either.

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author brings out many pertinent points in this book, but as urban dweller's often do, she misses much of the perspective of rural folk. In any comprehensive study of the South the rural population must be taken into consideration. Although Thompson discusses this she cuts it off pretty quick and returns to talking about the sins of the past. It is also apparent she has been influenced by her time in the North as much as her time in the South, by constantly putting the southern region down for not embracing what are basically political causes. Just because you don't agree with the beliefs of a people of a region doesn't mean that slavery & racism are the cause of it.