Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity

Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity
by James C. Cobb

Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity
List Price: $18.95
Our Price: $10.76
You Save: $8.19 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.81 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: James C. Cobb
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-12
ISBN: 0195315812
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Book Reviews of Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity

Book Review: My humble review
Summary: 4 Stars

Good comprehensive book with a lot of great details, but not as well organized as it purports to be. I sometimes find myself getting lost from paragraph to paragraph wondering how they relate to each other. Still, the overall themes are well developed.

Summary of Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity

From the seventeenth century Cavaliers and Uncle Tom's Cabin to Civil Rights museums and today's conflicts over the Confederate flag, here is a brilliant portrait of southern identity, served in an engaging blend of history, literature, and popular culture. In this insightful book, written with dry wit and sharp insight, James C. Cobb explains how the South first came to be seen--and then came to see itself--as a region apart from the rest of America.
As Cobb demonstrates, the legend of the aristocratic Cavalier origins of southern planter society was nurtured by both northern and southern writers, only to be challenged by abolitionist critics, black and white. After the Civil War, defeated and embittered southern whites incorporated the Cavalier myth into the cult of the "Lost Cause," which supplied the emotional energy for their determined crusade to rejoin the Union on their own terms. After World War I, white writers like Ellen Glasgow, William Faulkner and other key figures of "Southern Renaissance" as well as their African American counterparts in the "Harlem Renaissance"--Cobb is the first to show the strong links between the two movements--challenged the New South creed by asking how the grandiose vision of the South's past could be reconciled with the dismal reality of its present. The Southern self-image underwent another sea change in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, when the end of white supremacy shook the old definition of the "Southern way of life"--but at the same time, African Americans began to examine their southern roots more openly and embrace their regional, as well as racial, identity. As the millennium turned, the South confronted a new identity crisis brought on by global homogenization: if Southern culture is everywhere, has the New South become the No South?
Here then is a major work by one of America's finest Southern historians, a magisterial synthesis that combines rich scholarship with provocative new insights into what the South means to southerners and to America as well.

19th Century Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in 19th Century Books
Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (Galaxy Books) ImageAndrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (Galaxy Books)
by John William Ward
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1962-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $19.99
The Oregon Trail (Oxford World's Classics) ImageThe Oregon Trail (Oxford World's Classics)
by Francis Parkman Jr.
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops: $11.95
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation ImageA Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
by David W. Blight Ph. D.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2007-11-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops: $25.00
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 ImageSea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Audio; Published: 2003-11-10; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $1.07
Price in other shops: $39.95
The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore ImageThe Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
by David Dary
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-02-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.32
Price in other shops: $17.00
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text ImageThe Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text
by Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Arnold Douglas, Harold Holzer
Harpercollins; Published: 1993-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.79
The War With Spain in 1898 (The Macmillan Wars of the United States) ImageThe War With Spain in 1898 (The Macmillan Wars of the United States)
by David F. Trask
Free Pr; Published: 1981-06; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops: $45.00
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Old West ImageThe Complete Idiot's Guide to the Old West
by Mike Flanagan
Alpha; Published: 1999-07-13; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $57.44
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State ImageGone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State
by Randolph B. Campbell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2004-02-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $40.00
Price in other shops: $44.95
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library) ImageRoughing It (The Penguin American Library)
by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops: $16.00
Similar Books and other products
Stories of the Modern South: Revised Edition ImageStories of the Modern South: Revised Edition
by Various
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1995-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops: $17.00
Killers of the Dream ImageKillers of the Dream
by Lillian Smith
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 1994-07-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.17
Price in other shops: $14.95
Globalization and the American South ImageGlobalization and the American South
University of Georgia Press; Published: 2005-02-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.94
Price in other shops: $22.95
Southern Crossing: A History of the American South, 1877-1906 ImageSouthern Crossing: A History of the American South, 1877-1906
by Edward L. Ayers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.01
Price in other shops: $44.99
I'll Take My Stand: The South And the Agrarian Tradition (Library of Southern Civilization) ImageI'll Take My Stand: The South And the Agrarian Tradition (Library of Southern Civilization)
by Twelve Southerners
Louisiana State Univ Pr; Published: 2006-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops: $24.95
Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture ImageDreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture
by Karen L. Cox
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 2011-05-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $28.26
Price in other shops: $34.95
A Short History of Reconstruction ImageA Short History of Reconstruction
by Eric Foner
Harper Perennial; Published: 1990-01-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.96
Price in other shops: $14.99
Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan ImageBehind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan
by Nancy K. MacLean
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-07-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops: $19.99
Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture ImageDixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture
by Peter Applebome
Mariner Books; Published: 1997-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.10
Price in other shops: $22.95
The Mind of the South ImageThe Mind of the South
by W.J. Cash
Vintage; Published: 1991-09-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.38
Price in other shops: $17.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories