A New History of the American South

by Edward L. Ayers

To know the history of the American South, within its own context, is to come to terms with one of modern history’s most astonishing, polarizing, and illuminating stories. In these 24 lectures, you’ll relive the unforgettable drama of the South, from the rise and fall of the slave South to the making of the New South, examining the full scope of a historical epoch that still affects life in the United States today, through essential topics such

The Forging of the Slave South - Follow the settling of the Southern colonies and the economic conditions that made slavery a profitable business model; see how the slave economy expanded following the American Revolution

Southern Prosperity and Culture - Witness the creation of the large-scale cotton economy that emblemized the South; learn how the enslaved lived and worked and the ways in which slaves rebelled against a dehumanizing system

Breakdown of the Union - Examine the events that marked the disintegrating relations between North and South, from the emancipation of the Northern states to the divisive presidential election of 1860

Emancipation and the Experiment of Reconstruction - Relive the era of Reconstruction and the bitter conflict between the North’s efforts to remake the South and white Southerners’ actions to reassert their prewar power

Segregation and the New South - Observe how political and legal means were employed to separate the races and maintain white supremacy; explore how the New South gave rise to religious and musical expression of globe-spanning impact

In A New History of the American South, you’ll take a richly detailed excursion into the story and the enduring legacy of the South, in a historical inquiry unique in its scope. In Professor Ayers’s words, “We cannot understand the United States if we do not understand the South, which has played such an outsized role in the history of our country.”

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: History, Audiobook, Nonfiction, American History, Race, American Civil War

Audible Audio

Published August 17, 2018

About the author

Edward Ayers is President Emeritus of the University of Richmond, where he now serves as Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities. Previously Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, where he began teaching in 1980, Ayers was named the National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2003.

A historian of the American South, Ayers has written and edited 10 books. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America won the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history and the Beveridge Prize for the best book in English on the history of the Americas since 1492. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2013.

A pioneer in digital history, Ayers created "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War," a website that has attracted millions of users and won major prizes in the teaching of history. He serves as co-editor of the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States at the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab and is a co-host of BackStory with the American History Guys, a nationally syndicated radio show and podcast.

Ayers has received a presidential appointment to the National Council on the Humanities, served as a Fulbright professor in the Netherlands, and been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Reviews

[William Adam Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

3. 5 stars, rounded up. This 24 lecture course is by Professor Edward Ayers. This is his first course that I have listened to. He is well spoken and does not have any distracting speech mannerisms. As expected, this course leans heavily into the history of slavery. The course starts with the beginning of the first southern colonies and the importation of the first slaves to the region in 1619. The majority of the course concerns the period of the antebellum South and the lead up to the Civil War. The Civil War is a pretty well told story, so I was hoping to learn more about the Reconstruction period. This course did that, but only with a few lectures, it easily could have gone more in depth into this very complex period. The last few lectures cover up to the 1920's, but the lectures are not chronological all the way through, the last lecture goes back to cover the Gilded Age, which I thought was odd.

The title is a bit misleading, the history only covers up to 1920, with the majority of lectures covering 1820-1865. That's fine if that is the professor's preference, but since the title does not indicate that the history leaves a whole century out, I feel it is a little misleading. There are other newer Great Courses that cover this time period, but it adds a bit of incompleteness to this lecture series.

[Lynette Ackman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was pretty good. In the beginning, the author makes a big point out of how he’s relating history and we cannot judge…. And I thought “sure we can, watch me judge… here I am, judge judge judging.”

But it was well-written, learned a lot of new things, and the finish I found particularly good.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a good series of lectures about the American South. It does incorporate a good deal of more modern interpretations of US history in the information presented, but the lecturer tries to play it down the middle, or as much as you can with what is become an ever more controversial topic. The time scale goes from prehistory to the dawn of the 20th century. Perhaps the 20th century is its own series of lectures. Yet, while the big events and individuals are discussed, the attempt at a holistic approach to providing information is the strongest aspect of this lecture series. There will be parts that some do not agree with, but the scholarship and information presented is sound and an excellent review/starter for anyone wanting insight into the American South before 1900.

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only the cult of the Confederacy remains. That said, the fascinating events before, including the Secession Crisis and then after, including Reconstruction and Segregation, are the most important parts of this program. As a resident walks through the ruins of sawmills, or sawmill roads in the South, so named, the author provides illumination of how these came to be and how they died. The most overwhelming aspect of the course is how mainstream southern culture is, after the overthrow of Segregation, including the formation of global churches, such as Methodist, Presbyterian and Southern Baptist churches, as well all of their evangelical offshoots. Fascinating is the settlement of the South by blacks, and then the progression of music in the South.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New History of the American South by Edward Ayers is a pretty great, if somewhat incomplete, survey. The course covers a lot of territory, and does so in a way where it feels like Ayers is not trying to prove a point and weaponize history in pursuit of something else. Indeed, he's cautious - perhaps to an extreme - on that point. If I have a complaint though, it is that the course ends right before we really get into Jim Crow and later Civil Rights topics. The ending for the course is around 1900 or so. Booker T Washington gets a mostly favorable mention, but you get a very clear impression that there were at least another 12 or so lectures that were left on the cutting room floor. As such, the course comes across as more than a little incomplete. Overall though, very good.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting if not enthralling collection of lectures on the history of the American South. Sometimes the lecturer seemed overly comprehensive; a whole lecture on the history of the geology of the South seemed a bit much and a whole lecture on the pre-Columbian inhabitants seemed off topic. At other times the lecturer seemed to ignore important sections of history, his history stops in the early 20th century, but the South did not stop then. A lecture on the Civil Rights movement and the rise of the South economically in the latter half of the twentieth century would have been nice.

Still, Ayers' lectures are worth the time.

[Hank Pharis · Rating 3 out of 5]

(NOTE: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 stars means a very good book or a B+. 4 stars means an outstanding book or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit 4 stars}. 5 stars means an all time favorite or an A+ {Only one of 400 or 500 books rates this!).

The great news is that I can listen to a book a day at work. The bad news is that I can’t keep up with decent reviews. So I’m going to give up for now and just rate them. I hope to come back to some of the most significant things I listen to and read them and then post a review.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are undoubtedly a good number of thoughtful people who will take issue with some of Ayers' lectures. But it is also certainly true that he focuses a good deal of scholarship on viewing some facets of the American South in new ways that challenge both the accepted wisdom and counter-cultural stories of that experience. They include everything from why agricultural crops such as cotton became the crop of choice for farmers to how people of the time viewed their chances at seceding from the United States. A very interesting listen.

[Nick Heim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this. It weaves the cultural history of England, Africa, Scotland, and indigenous America to paint a picture of the people who made/make up the American South. It highlights that segregation is a 20th-century innovation rather than a 19th-century institution. While admitting that it was entrenchee in certain areas. It also ambiguously covers the black and white populist movements both in religion and politics. The focus on the late 19th and early 20th century music and literature was also super interesting.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is part of the Great Courses series and covers the history of the American South. This comes with a Course Guidebook and DVD lectures covering the 100 years of the struggles of African Americans that they undergo while living and working in the United States. Very informative, eye opening and interesting. Ayers narrates the DVDs and does a great job of it.

[Deaver T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. Seems an old history of the South. Still a lot of apologetic sympathetic tone toward slavery, the traitors of the CSA, and segregationists. Maybe I’ve just been radicalized but I don’t see much to celebrate or venerate in what we used to call the Old South, but a South we see now as not so old.

[Alex Van Houdt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the academic approach, even if it ended far too early. The most foundational events (the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Civil Rights Movement) are either mostly glossed over or completely left out. Maybe it was by design, as it did allow me to get a better idea of life in a more ordinary, day to day sense of the region, and I did like it. Just found the title to be a bit misleading.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having lived my whole life in the "north" I wanted to get a perspective of the history of the south and this course did an excellent job of delivering just that.

[Kenneth Sowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

truly an excellent production with a balanced approach to rethinking the history of the South

[James Reagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative!

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Kiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for a solid chronological history of the South up past Reconstruction. This course is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

The one element of Southern history I wish it had gone into further — the one I am looking for everywhere but can’t really find — is an explanation of why individual white families kept moving west in the South from 1820 to 1860. The reason for going west in the first place is clear — and is mentioned in this course. They wanted more land and better opportunities to farm prosperously. But so many families, sometimes entire little communities, would pick up and move further west just a few years after having already settled in a new spot.

Moving was really hard back then. There were no moving vans or interstate highways or real estate agents to sell you a nice prepackaged home. I wish I could find one historian who would go more deeply into this fact and explain what compelled so many people to completely uproot themselves four, five, or six times during their lives. And where were they settling that made this possible? Surely they wouldn’t have been able to pull it off if each time they arrived at a new location they had to clear the woods by themselves and build a house by themselves. Or am I wrong? Is that actually what they did? Or were they moving into houses and cleared lands left by the First Americans who had been run off? This was the time period of the Trail of Tears, after all. Or were they doing some combination of the two?

There is one fact related to this question that WAS included in this course, and which I was very grateful to discover. In my census record research following individuals across the South, I would often discover my subjects to be living nearby individuals and families who they had also lived nearby a decade or two before, in an entirely different state. That discovery — that entire little communities were moving together — surprised me at first. But Dr. Ayers points out in this course the immense economic value of and individual’s reputation. So much of life in the South at that time was built on credit. Farmers didn’t have money to pay for things each year until the crops came in, so it was imperative to receive credit so they could buy necessities before the money arrived. It took years to build up a good reputation that provided good credit. So the fact that entire communities tended to move together makes sense. Everyone would need other people around them who trusted them and could vouch for their integrity.

Anyway, this was a well done and useful course. I hIghly recommend it.