The American South: A History, Volume 2, From Reconstruction to the Present, Fifth Edition

About the Book

In The American South: A History, Fifth Edition, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the South from the history of the United States. The authors' analysis underscores the complex interaction between the South as a distinct region and the South as an inescapable part of America. Cooper and Terrill show how the resulting tension has often propelled section and nation toward collision. In supporting their thesis, the authors draw on the tremendous amount of profoundly new scholarship in Southern history. Each volume includes a substantial bibliographical essay—completely updated for this edition—which provides the reader with a guide to literature on the history of the South. This volume contains updated chapters, and tables.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Prologue: The Enduring South
List of Maps

Chapter 16. After the War

Reconstruction / Presidential Reconstruction / Southern Defiance: Unconquered Rebels? / The Republicans and Johnson’s Reconstruction Policies / The 1866 Election and the Fourteenth Amendment / Reconstruction: Myth and Reality / The Emergence of the One-Party South / The Compromise of 1877

Chapter 17. Economic Reconstruction, 1865–1880

Landlords, Sharecroppers, and Tenants / Blacks and the Limits to Freedom / “Furnish,” Crop Liens, and Country Merchants / Money and Interest / Puppet Monarch / Southern Railways / Bankruptcy, Consolidation, and Regulation / Cities, Towns, and Industry

Chapter 18. The Redeemers and the New South, 1865–1890

The New South Creed / The Lost Cause / A Woman of the New South / Political Independents Challenge the Redeemers / Republicans and Democrats in Virginia / The Solid South / Southern Democrats and Blacks / The Solid South and National Politics / The Blair Bill / The Legacy of the Redeemers

Chapter 19. A Different South Emerges: Rails, Mills, and Towns

Railroad Empires / Industry in the New South / Forest Products / Metals and Minerals / Processed Farm Products / Tobacco Manufacturing / Cotton Manufacturing / Urbanization in the New South / A Different South: At the Turn of the Century

Chapter 20. The South and the Crisis of the 1890s

The Depression of the 1890s / Prelude to the Alliance Movement / The Alliance Movement: Texas Roots / The Alliance in Politics / The Mississippi Plan / The Populists / Political Upheaval / The Populist Legacy / Disfranchisement: Jim Crow and Southern Politics / The Foundation Resecured

Chapter 21. Jim Crow: Black and White South

The Atlanta Compromise / Jim Crow / Why Jim Crow? / The Black World / Industrial Workers in the New South / Unions and Unionization in the New South / New Divisions among Protestants / Political Demagogues

Chapter 22. Southern Progressives

Four Southern Progressives / Progressivism, Southern Style / The Roots of Southern Progressivism / Educational Reform / Health Reforms / Child Labor Reform / Southern Ladies / Prohibition: The Noble Experiment

Chapter 23. Restoration and Exile, 1912–1929

The Wilson Administration / A Disrupted Society: The South during World War I / Good Times: The Southern Economy and World War I / Southern Appalachia / The Town World / Business Progressivism and State Government / The Ku Klux Klan Reborn / The Black World / The World of the Farm / The End of the Decade

Chapter 24. Religion and Culture in the New South

The Scopes Trial / The Religious Heritage of the Twentieth-Century South / Culture in the Postbellum South / The War Within / The Southern Literary Renaissance / Southern Regionalism in the 1920s and 1930s / Gone with the Wind
Map Essay: The Changing South: People and Cotton

Chapter 25. The Emergence of the Modern South, 1930–1945

The Depression and the South / In the Democratic Majority / The New Deal and Southern Agriculture / The New Deal and Southern Industry / Cracks in the Solid South / Jim Crow: An Uncertain Future / World War II

Chapter 26. The End of Jim Crow: The Civil Rights Revolution

Jim Crow and the Truman Administration / The Supreme Court and “Separate but Equal” / Brown: Massive Resistance, Calculated Evasion / Public School Desegregation: Little Rock and New Orleans / The Civil Rights Movement / The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights / Birmingham and the March on Washington / The Voting Rights Act / The Evening News and “History” / Public School Desegregation and the End of “Freedom of Choice”

Chapter 27. The Modern South

Wallace and National Politics / The Rise of the Southern Republicans / The Collapse of the Solid South / The Republican Party Secures Its Place in Dixie / The Transformation of the Southern Democrats / The Sunbelt / “Cotton Fields No More” / The Metropolitan South

Chapter 28. The Sunbelt South: No Eden in Dixie

The Vanishing South? / Two Religions: North and South? / Other Faiths: Southern Literature, Football, and Elvis / Persistent Divisions: Black and White

Biographies
Bibliographical Essay
Index
About the Authors

About the Author :

William J. Cooper, Jr. is Boyd professor of History at Louisiana State University.
Thomas E. Terrill is emeritus professor of History at the University of South Carolina.
Christopher Childers is assistant professor of History at Pittsburg State University.

Review :
This massive, colorful, continually absorbing panorama takes a fresh look at the whole of Southern history. . . . The authors, both history professors . . . bring recent scholarship to bear on a host of topics, from guerrilla warfare between royalists and rebels during the American Revolution to slavery, the Southern Literary Renaissance and the decline of front-porch culture in the urbanized Sunbelt. On some issues they take a revisionist stance (e.g., 'Whether patriarchy was the official ideology in the antebellum South is by no means clear'). Although Southern culture remained trapped in Victorianism as late as the 1920s, modernism forced a wrenching self-examination. The authors find 'no Eden in Dixie' as they survey the New South of persistent racial division, high murder rates, televangelism and low incomes. As the first full textbook on the region's history, Cooper and Terrill's The American South has long been a staple in undergraduate classrooms, and for good reason. This comprehensive, but concise, history by distinguished scholars of the Old and New South, respectively, serves both students and instructors as an effective introduction and a ready reference. In chronicling the South's distinctive history, the authors are constantly attuned to the fact that its history has always integral to that of the nation as a whole; their ability to so adeptly balance the particular with the general makes this an engaging and eminently teachable narrative. Combining original analysis with an impressive grasp of relevant scholarship, The American South: A History is distinguished by its wealth of fascinating information and its strong narrative style. It is the kind of book that students want to keep when the course is finished. Given the many recent books on specific periods of Southern history (particularly the Civil War), the appearance of this text that covers the sweep of Southern history from the English origins of Jamestown through the rise and fall of the 'Solid South' to the socioeconomic transformation of the Sunbelt in the 1970s and 1980s is most welcome. Stressing the dynamics of the relationship between white and black Southerners that have shaped the history of the region for more than 300 years, the authors (both professors at Southern universities) incorporate recent scholarship into their attempt to answer two long-standing questions: What was and is the American South? What was and is a Southerner? Along the way they pay attention to such traditional subjects as political leadership and plantation economics, as well as to topics once conspicuously absent from Southern history textbooks: Southern Native Americans, the slave family, post-emancipation black life, Southern labor, and Southern women.