Dixie Rising : How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture

Rating:
Summary: Home Is Where The Heart Is
Review: Enough has been said in the previous reviews of this book, either for or against, to give people a sense of how others feel about it. My one contention with the whole work is this, Mr. Applebome, a Yankee living in the South, is an outsider looking in. To me, the book is the equivalent of me, a native Georgian, walking into your house and saying "I like the painting over the mantle, but the color of the walls is atrocious." In the end, it doesn't matter what I think of your home, you're the one living there. The times I've been "up yonder", I've quickly realized how different Northerners were from Southerners, but, since I don't live there, I don't worry how "those people" think and do things. One review recommended this book to people thinking of moving to the South, if you're one of those people wanting to move down here, just remember, you're only visiting, don't try to change us or our ways, it won't work. If you want to know why, it's for this simple reason, a homemade cat-head bisquit stuffed with ham, egg and cheese (with extra salt just in case you didn't get enough in the ham and eggs while cooking them) will always taste better than a bagel with cream cheese. If the State of the Union and where we are headed and how things are looking country-wise is important to you, you might, and I stress "might" enjoy this book. If you only concern yourself with your own life and your worries don't extend past your own front yard (i.e. you mind your own business and let the rest of the world take care of itself) then pass it by.

Rating:
Summary: Prescient, persuasive, provocative and astute.
Review: Mixing fact and anecdote with a keen eye and ear for the rhymes and reasons that shape and have shaped the fabric of the american south, Applebome's book acheives a kind of birds eye view of a world whose influence has been obscured in myth and misunderstanding. Applebome clearly knows his territory well, and has put in the miles of travel and years of study to reach a level of insight that goes beyond anything else I have read on the subject. His polymath's approach includes a wide spectrum of topics from the political to the musical--and he shows us how and why the south has emerged from its volatile history to a place where it now stands at the vanguard of so many trends and developments in our society. This is readable and entertaining scholarship from someone who has lived with his subject and come to know it like few others. Very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Southern Culture, American Culture
Review: Through a dozen chapters, Peter Applebome journeys through the modern South, discussing how Southern values have become American values, and how Southern culture has become mainstream. Since the 1960s, the South's politics have come to dominate the nation, and themes that are prominent in the South's daily life have come to be accepted across the country. These themse include individualism, race as a subtext to daily life, religion as part of political life, opposition to gun control, support for the death penalty, liberalism as a dirty word, and states rights as a viable political theory. All of these describe the South, and in the 1990s, they describe the country as well. The region's influence has grown along with its population Applebome looks at all parts of the South, including suburban Cobb County, which he says has defined itself in opposition to Atlanta. Cobb's suburban strip malls are no different than those in any suburban setting in the country. Southern cities like Atlanta and Charlotte are among the nation's business centers. Applebome looks at other parts of the South, examining the state of race relations, the ghosts of labor uprisings, the plight of the rural South, and Southerners' nostalgia for a place that never existed. All in all, Applebome paints an accurate picture of the Modern South, and is generally successful as a journalist in showing that the modern South's contributions to the nation have been both positive and negative. The region has influenced the nation's politics and culture for good and for ill.