A Companion to the American South surveys and evaluates the most important and innovative writing on the entire sweep of the history of the southern United States.

Contains 29 original essays by leading experts in American Southern history.Covers the entire sweep of Southern history, including slavery, politics, the Civil War, race relations, religion, and women's history.Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every important era and topic.Summarizes current debates and anticipates future concerns.

John B. Boles is William Pettus Hobby Professor of History at Rice University and Managing Editor of theJournal of Southern History. His recent books includeThe Irony of Southern Religion (1994) andThe South Through Time: A History of an American Region (second edition, 1999).

List of Contributors.

Preface.

Part I: the Colonial South.

1. The First Southerners: Indians of the Early South (Amy turner Bushnell).

2. Spanish and French Exploration and Colonization (Paul E. Hoffman).

3. The English Colonial South to 1750 (Cynthia A. Kierner).

4. The Origins of Slavery. 1619-1808 (Betty Wood).

5. Understanding the South in the Revolutionary Era, 1750--1789 (Ira D. Gruber).

Part II: The Antebellum South.

6. The South in the New Nation, 1790-1824. (Daniel S. Dupre).

7. The Plantation Economy (Mark M. Smith).

8. The Maturation of Slave Society and Culture (Stephanie J. Shaw).

9. Plain Folk Yeomanry in the Antebellum South (Samuel C. Hyde, Jr.).

10. Religion in the Pre-Civil War South (Randy J. Sparks).

11. Politics in the Antebellum South (Daniel W, Crofts).

12. Women in the Old South (Sally G. McMillen).

13. Intellectual and Cultural History of the Old South (David Moltke-Hansen).

Part III: Civil War and Reconstruction.

14. Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis (Mary A. DeCredico).

15. The Civil War: Military and Political Aspects along with Social, Religious, Gender, and Salve Perspectives (George C. Rable).

16. Emancipation and Its Consequences (Larua F. Edwards).

17. Political Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (Michael W. Fitzgerald).

18. Economic Consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Joseph P. Reidy).

Part IV: The New South.

19. Southern Politics in the Age of Populism and Progressivism: A Historiographical essay (Samuel L. Webb).

20. The Rise of Jim Crow, 1880-1920 (James Beeby and Donald G. Nieman).

21. Women in the Post-Civil War South (Elizabeth Hayes Turner).

22. The Discovery of Appalachia: regional Revisionism as Scholarly Renaissance (John C. Inscoe).

23. Religion in the American South Since the Civil War (Paul Harvey).

Part V: The Modern South.

24. Southern Environmental History (Mart A. Stewart).

25. Labor Relations in the Industrializing South (Daniel Letwin).

26. The Impact of the New Deal and World War II on the South (Pamela Tyler).

27. The Civil Rights Movement (Charles W. Eagles).

28. the Rise of the Sunbelt: Urbanization and Industrialization (David R. Goldfield).

29. The Transformation of Southern Politics, 1954 to the Present (Wayne Flynt).

Index.