Books about Southerners from Amazon.com

• Defines, models and practices Critical and Scientific Thinking
• Culture and gender integrated throughout
• Active Learning focus

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Price: $47.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Why did the Confederacy lose the Civil War? Most historians point to the larger number of Union troops, or to the North's greater industrial might. Now, in The South Vs. the South, a leading authority on the Civil War era offers a critical supplementary viewpoint William Freehling argues that 450,000 Union troops from the South--especially border state whites and southern blacks--helped cost the Confederacy the war. In addition, when the southern border states rejected the Confederacy, half the South's industrial capacity swelled the North's advantage. Whether revising our conception of Union military strategy or of slavery, or changing our perceptions of blacks' role in producing Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, or finding new meanings in what is arguably America's greatest piece of sculpture, Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial, or establishing the antecedents to Martin Luther King, Jr., Freehling's piercing insight and rhetorical verve yield a major new Civil War narrative..
Price: $6.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Book Description:
From Matt Lee and Ted Lee, the New York Times food writers who defended lard and demystified gumbo comes a collection of exceptional southern recipes for everyday cooks. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook tells the story of the brothers' culinary coming-of-age in Charleston--how they triumphed over their northern roots and learned to cook southern without a southern grandmother. Here are recipes for classics like Fried Chicken, Crab Cakes, and Pecan Pie, as well as little-known preparations such as St. Cecilia Punch, Pickled Peaches, and Shrimp Burgers. Others bear the hallmark of the brothers' resourceful cooking style—simple, sophisticated dishes like Blackened Potato Salad, Saigon Hoppin' John, and Buttermilk-Sweet Potato Pie that usher southern cooking into the twenty-first century without losing sight of its roots. With helpful sourcing and substitution tips, this is a practical and personal guide that will have readers cooking southern tonight, wherever they live.

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Amazon.com Exclusive: "A Night in Louisville" by Matt Lee and Ted Lee
On a clear, brisk February afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, in the asphalt parking lot of Lynn's Paradise Cafe, we started a fire. All it took to get going was some wadded-up newspaper, a small pyramid of charcoal, and a match. To keep the flame alive, we put our cheeks to the chilly pavement and blew on the bottom layer of coals. Diners leaving the cafe from early dinners glanced at us, chuckled nervously, and hurried along to their cars. When the pile was glowing, we added some split logs and the plume of smoke rising from the pavement became woodsy and fragrant. By the time the sun went down, the flames were hotter and brighter, so we added more oak. Once the fire was roaring, customers in the restaurant became concerned, and the chef, Sarah, in clogs and a kerchief, shuffled out with the buttoned-up manager, Lori, to check on us.

Continue Reading "A Night in Louisville"

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During the civil rights movement, epic battles for justice were fought in the streets, at lunch counters, and in the classrooms of the American South. Just as many battles were waged, however, in the hearts and minds of ordinary white southerners whose world became unrecognizable to them. Jason Sokol’s vivid and unprecedented account of white southerners’ attitudes and actions, related in their own words, reveals in a new light the contradictory mixture of stubborn resistance and pragmatic acceptance–as well as the startling and unexpected personal transformations–with which they greeted the enforcement of legal equality..
Price: $8.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Between 1900 and the 1970s, twenty million southerners migrated north and west. Weaving together for the first time the histories of these black and white migrants, James Gregory traces their paths and experiences in a comprehensive new study that demonstrates how this regional diaspora reshaped America by "southernizing" communities and transforming important cultural and political institutions.

Challenging the image of the migrants as helpless and poor, Gregory shows how both black and white southerners used their new surroundings to become agents of change. Combining personal stories with cultural, political, and demographic analysis, he argues that the migrants helped create both the modern civil rights movement and modern conservatism. They spurred changes in American religion, notably modern evangelical Protestantism, and in popular culture, including the development of blues, jazz, and country music.

In a sweeping account that pioneers new understandings of the impact of mass migrations, Gregory recasts the history of twentieth-century America. He demonstrates that the southern diaspora was crucial to transformations in the relationship between American regions, in the politics of race and class, and in the roles of religion, the media, and culture..
Price: $13.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The owners of Southern Living's longtime "Best Restaurant in the South," the Blue Willow Inn, Louis and Billie Van Dyke have created the most complete and thorough Southern cookbook ever published.

Containing more than 600 recipes in every imaginable category, The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking is a staple in kitchens of everyone who appreciates classic Southern cooking. It is a book that contains not only classic recipes that have been handed down for generations, but also new Southern favorites. Destined to become a classic along the lines of Betty Crocker, Fannie Farmer, and The Joy of Cooking, The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking will sell for years to come.

Recipes include:

Fried Sweet Potatoes

Corn Pudding

Squash Dressing

Fried Green Tomatoes

Apple Stack Cake

Sawmill Gravy

Cathead Biscuits

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Price: $9.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Southerners whose communities were invaded by the Union army during the Civil War endured a profoundly painful ordeal. For most, the coming of the Yankees was a nightmare become real; for some, it was the answer to a prayer. But as Stephen Ash argues, for all, invasion and occupation were essential parts of the experience of defeat that helped shape the southern postwar mentality.

When the Yankees Came is the first comprehensive study of the occupied South, bringing to light a wealth of new information about the southern home front. Among the intriguing topics Ash explores are guerrilla warfare and other forms of civilian resistance; the evolution of Union occupation policy from leniency to repression; the impact of occupation on families, churches, and local government; and conflicts between southern aristocrats and poor whites. In analyzing these topics, Ash examines events from the perspective not only of southerners but also of the northern invaders, and he shows how the experiences of southerners differed according to their distance from a garrisoned town..
Price: $19.84 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern communities, William Link presents an important reinterpretation of the origins and impact of progressivism in the South. He shows that a fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners, ultimately blocking the reforms. His book, based on extensive archival research, adds a new dimension to the study of American reform movements.

The new group of social reformers that emerged near the end of the nineteenth century believed that the South, an underdeveloped and politically fragile region, was in the midst of a social crisis. They recognized the environmental causes of social problems and pushed for interventionist solutions. As a consensus grew about southern social problems in the early 1900s, reformers adopted new methods to win the support of reluctant or indifferent southerners. By the beginning of World War I, their public crusades on prohibition, health, schools, woman suffrage, and child labor had led to some new social policies and the beginnings of a bureaucratic structure. By the late 1920s, however, social reform and southern progressivism remained largely frustrated.

Link's analysis of the response of rural southern communities to reform efforts establishes a new social context for southern progressivism. He argues that the movement failed because a cultural chasm divided the reformers and the communities they sought to transform. Reformers were paternalistic. They believed that the new policies should properly be administered from above, and they were not hesitant to impose their own solutions. They also viewed different cultures and races as inferior.

Rural southerners saw their communities and customs quite differently. For most, local control and personal liberty were watchwords. They had long deflected attempts of southern outsiders to control their affairs, and they opposed the paternalistic reforms of the Progressive Era with equal determination. Throughout the 1920s they made effective implementation of policy changes difficult if not impossible. In a small-scale war, rural folk forced the reformers to confront the integrity of the communities they sought to change..
Price: $5.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]