Volume 31, Number 19 · December 6, 1984
Panic in the South
By George M. Fredrickson
The Crucible of Race: Black–White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation
by Joel Williamson
Oxford University Press, 561 pp., $25.00
When Henry Ford made his famous pronouncement that 'history is bunk,' he spoke for many Americans. Compared with the citizens of most other countries, Americans have been little inclined to dwell on the triumphs or tragedies of the past or to recognize that contemporary problems and concerns may have roots extending far backward in time. But Ford's off-handedness about history has been less common among southerners than among others. A heavy legacy of slavery, secession, military defeat, racial violence, legalized segregation, and wide-spread poverty has set the South apart—or did so until recent historical trends narrowed the economic divisions between the sections and revealed that racial injustice and conflict were national, and not just southern, problems.
Review, 3953 words
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