The Burden of Southern History
by C. Vann Woodward
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C. Vann Woodward's The Burden of Southern History remains one of the essential history texts of our time. In it Woodward brilliantly addresses the interrelated themes of southern identity, southern distinctiveness, and the strains of irony that characterize much of the South's historical experience. First published in 1960, the book quickly became a touchstone for generations of students. This updated third edition contains a chapter, ""Look Away, Look Away,"" in which Woodward finds a show more plethora of additional ironies in the South's experience. It also includes previously uncollected appreciatio show lessTags
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A collection of essays without cant, The Burden of Southern History begins and ends with a bang: in "The Search for Southern Identity" and "The Irony of Southern History," Woodward examines how Southerners--unlike Americans from other regions--have "experienced history" in their Civil War defeat and Reconstruction. Other essays treat the symbolic weight of John Brown, the difference between freed slaves' freedom and equality, and the use of Southern characters in the work of Meliville, Adams, and James. The middle sometimes wanes (as in the long treatment of Populism that assumes familiarity with a number of people and movements that have faded from view) but the style is solid and unmarred by the theory and hand-wringing that show more characterizes so much academic writing today. If you're pressed for time, read the opening and conclusing essays. show less
3725. The Burden of Southern History, by C. Vann Woodward (read 4 Apr 2003) Woodward is a master of Southern history, and this is the 5th of his books I've read. It is a collection of eight essays and, like a book of short stories, some are of greater interest than others. Thus the book was not of the high interest and absorbing power of other work by Woodward, e.g., Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel (read 5 Mar 1995), a most illuminating account of a Southern demagogue, or Mary Chesnut's Civil War (read 17 July 2000), which he edited. Maybe the best essay in this book is "The Political Legacy of Reconstruction" written in 1957 and showing the moderation of Negroes when they had the vote after the Civil War--an essay which could not help but show more fuel the corrective history of Reconstruction which has illuminated that time for us and dispelled the fog of old movies like The Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind. show less
Covers the uniqueness and "strangeness" of Southern History
First edition was in 1960, then 1968, 1900 & 1993
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25+ Works 4,234 Members
One of the world's most distinguished historians, C. Vann Woodward was born in Vanndale, Arkansas, and educated at Emory University and the University of North Carolina, where he received his Ph.D. in 1937. After teaching at Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Florida, and Scripps College for a time, in 1946 he joined the faculty at show more The Johns Hopkins University, where he began producing the many young Ph.D.s who have followed him into the profession. In 1961 he became Sterling Professor at Yale University, where he remains today as emeritus professor. He has been the Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, Harmsworth Professor at Oxford University, and Commonwealth Lecturer at the University of London. Past president of all the major historical associations, he holds the Gold Medal of the National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and is a member of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. His honors also include a Bancroft Prize for Origins of the New South, 1876--1913 (1951) and a 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981). A premier historian of the American South and of race relations in the United States, Woodward studies the South in a way that sheds light on the human condition everywhere. In recent years he has turned his attention increasingly to comparative history. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
Awards
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1960
- Dedication
- To Robert Penn Warren
In memoriam - First words
- The time is coming, of indeed it has not already arrived, when the Southerner will begin to ask himself if there is really any longer very much point in calling himself a Southerner.
- Quotations
- The South has a tradition of attempting the impossible at great cost, proudly celebrating the failure, and gaining admiration for the performance. Black Southerners have made their own adaptation of the tradition in the civil... (show all) rights movement.
After Faulkner, Wolfe, Warren and Welty no literate Southerner could remain unaware of his heritage or doubt its enduring value.
The South once thought of itself as a "peculiar people," set apart by its eccentricities, but in many ways modern America better deserves that description. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It is our great fortune that we had among us for a time a poet who understood that -- and so much else about his role and his art.
- Blurbers
- O'Connor, Flannery; Wiley, Bell I.; Smith, Henry Nash; Current, Richard N.
- Original language
- English
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- Members
- 352
- Popularity
- 89,992
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.56)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 14
