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Cover image of Standing at the Crossroads
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Standing at the Crossroads

Southern Life in the Twentieth Century

Pete Daniel

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This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel takes the reader through a variety of topics that relate directly to the Southern experience: rural life, violence, music, literature, civil rights, unionism, urbanization, xenophobia, migration, religion, cockfighting, and stock car racing.

This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel stresses the diversity of Southern life, which includes not only regional variations but also...

This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel takes the reader through a variety of topics that relate directly to the Southern experience: rural life, violence, music, literature, civil rights, unionism, urbanization, xenophobia, migration, religion, cockfighting, and stock car racing.

This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel stresses the diversity of Southern life, which includes not only regional variations but also divisions between black and white, male and female, rural and urban. From "separate but equal" to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and its legacy, Standing at the Crossroads explores the extraordinary changes that transformed the South. Daniel takes the reader through a variety of topics that relate directly to the Southern experience: rural life, violence, music, literature, civil rights, unionism, urbanization, xenophobia, migration, religion, cockfighting, and stock car racing.

Reviews

Reviews

This book is full of wonderful surprises: an entire heritage of violence compressed in the cinematic images of a notorious murder trial; the contradictions and transformations of the post-World War II period summed up in Jackie Robinson's career; the South's persistent wild side embodied in stock-car racing and rock 'n' roll. Standing at the Crossroads should make compelling reading for natives and outlanders alike.

Pete Daniel illuminates, with marvelous precision, the economic, social, and cultural contours of life in the modern South. Skillfully interweaving insights on rock and country music with discussions of rural farm life, racial confrontation, and the emergence of the Sun Belt, Daniel helps us come to grips with what has been lost—and gained—through the South's road to modernization.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
259
ISBN
9780801854958
Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Southern Cultures in Conflict
Chapter 2. Politics and Urban Growth
Chapter 3. The Grid of Violence
Chapter 4. Tolling of a Bell
Chapter 5. The Coat of Many Colors
Chapter 6. The Conservative

Chapter 1. Southern Cultures in Conflict
Chapter 2. Politics and Urban Growth
Chapter 3. The Grid of Violence
Chapter 4. Tolling of a Bell
Chapter 5. The Coat of Many Colors
Chapter 6. The Conservative Revolution
Chapter 7. The Two-Front War
Chapter 8. The Movement for Civil Rights
Chapter 9. Domesticated Violence
Chapter 10. A Second Chance at Reconstruction
Chapter 11. Consolidating the Revolution
Bibliographical Essay
Index

Author Bio
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Pete Daniel

Pete Daniel is curator of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. His books include The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901-1969 and Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880.