Although the Civil War reconfigured Dixie, in the half century since the end of World War II the American South has been massively changed again. It is still an improbable mix of tradition and transition, but the stereotype of a region with one party politics, one crop agriculture, white supremacy, cultural insularity, grinding poverty, somnolent cotton towns, and languorous rural landscapes has largely passed into history. Possum Trot and Tobacco Road have been suburbanized and how have Walmarts. As the regions's boosters insist, the -nations's number0one economic problem- has joined the...

These original essays address a cluster of related problems of enduring fascination for all those who wish to understand the ever-changing, ever-abiding American South. Offering new answers to important questions, they address the Second World War as a major watershed in southern history.