eBook The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism ePub

Anasius

This book is what I am currently reading for a college history course, and thus far is an excellent book. It gives you Lassiter and Crespino view of whether the South is exceptional-meaning-is the South different from the rest of the nation during this time period. Although, I haven't read the entire book just yet, only a few chapters, this books gives maximum detail and illustration about the main hot topic. If you are a Southern historian or just love the history of the South, I highly recommend reading this book.

Sti

A someone who fairly recently finished a study of am interesting corner of Southern history, what is really interesting about this collection's goal, to my mind, is the broad heuristic ambition of the whole thing. But, the Southern experience historiographically seems to be like a quicksand for many scholars. The more they struggle to exit from it, the more they are drawn in. The ambition of this collection, which seems a noble one in a broad sense, is to situate regional problems in the wider perspective. But one must ask, as a methodological problem, how such an ambition avoids the fundamental "true but trivial" issue of analysis. The South is of course part of the United States, and shares in its larger trajectory. that is "true but trivial" methodologically. I emphasize, that does NOT mean that insights drawn on that basis are trivial, as clearly the essays in the volume are very serious. But my own scholarly investigative work has made me reflect on the more fundamental issue of the inexorable and inescapable cultural nexus of the South for proper analysis, which is always a part of any place, after all. and of course not only of the South. So from such a vantage point, while Southern exceptionalism may be a myth, its historiographical uniqueness is not. Thus we are always in the Southern hermeneutical web, even if we try to exit it. Relatedly, to appreciate what was good about the South is only possible with a clarity of fundamental vision which indicates contradictions not to be resolved by seeing them only from a more national perspective. Please not, that this is so, even if we admit that ultimately the national perspective is the ultimate one for final analysis. While it naturally goes in tandem with acknowledging what was less desirable about the region, only a more narrow focus can bring out what was particularly good. . Thus, there always remains philosophically, and more precisely hermeneutically, an ambit or horizon of difference for the South. And again I emphasize this is so even if the results of more complete understanding would be to remove some of the more problematic differences. These are based not broad tales, but on the tectonic contradictions of the past. If we do not situate those adequately we miss the unique trajectories of the desire for freedom in the region. Such trajectories, almost like gossamer because of the hardships of the region, will surely be buried and forgotten by looking at the region essentially in terms of national political destinies. They can only be made part of the "bigger picture" by, paradoxically, cultural narrowing the focus a bit, at least for analytic purposes, which I would argue is utterly harmless. Further, I would argue, in summary, that historiographically we would benefit from understanding the "specialness' of the South, if not not, I would agree, its "exceptionalism". Of course, what is "special" brings out plenty that is bad as well as good. Finally, I will add that the attractive scholar Joseph Crespino's recent appearance on C-SPAN, on a somewhat related topic, adds credence and understanding to the point of view articulated in this book, even if one has requires a different emphasis.