Originally published on July 31, 2023 (Episode 327)
Introduction
For more than two centuries, the American South has fascinated Americans—and increasingly, people around the world. Its economy, politics, religion, race relations, literature, and food have profoundly shaped national life.
A New History of the American South (UNC, 2023) brings together leading historians to create a new narrative stretching from the prehistory of the region to the present day. This fresh account considers the experiences of all the peoples of the South: Indigenous, Black, and white; male and female; rich, poor, and middling. At the heart of the South’s history, these various authors suggest, is not tradition or stability, but a continuous flow of change, often violent.
About the Guest
At the helm of this book project is W. Fitzhugh Brundage, editor of the volume and impresario of the collaboration. Brundage is William Umstead Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His own scholarship has explored lynching, utopian socialism in the New South, memory and historical narratives, and the history of torture in the United States. He is currently at work on a study of Civil War prisoner-of-war camps.
For Further Investigation
W. Fitzhugh Brundage (ed.), A New History of the American South (UNC, 2023)
C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913: A History of the New South (LSU, 1981)
W.J. Cash, Mind of the South (Vintage, 1991)
John Shelton Reed, The Enduring South: Subcultural Persistence in Mass Society
💬 Listen & Discuss
How does A New History of the American South revise or replace older interpretations of the region? Share the podcast with a Southerner that you know, or with anyone who is Southern-curious.
