In this Book
- Alabama Getaway: The Political Imaginary and the Heart of Dixie
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: University of Georgia Press
- Series: Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South
In Alabama Getaway Allen Tullos explores the recent history of one of the nation’s most conservative states to reveal its political imaginary—the public shape of power, popular imagery, and individual opportunity.
From Alabama’s largely ineffectual politicians to its miserly support of education, health care, cultural institutions, and social services, Tullos examines why the state appears to be stuck in repetitive loops of uneven development and debilitating habits of judgment. The state remains tied to fundamentalisms of religion, race, gender, winner-take-all economics, and militarism enforced by punitive and defensive responses to criticism. Tullos traces the spectral legacy of George Wallace, ponders the roots of anti-egalitarian political institutions and tax structures, and challenges Birmingham native Condoleezza Rice’s use of the civil rights struggle to justify the war in Iraq. He also gives due coverage to the state’s black citizens who with a minority of whites have sustained a movement for social justice and democratic inclusion. As Alabama competes for cultural tourism and global industries like auto manufacturing and biomedical research, Alabama Getaway asks if the coming years will see a transformation of the “Heart of Dixie.”
Table of Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- pp. xi-xii
- INTRODUCTION
- pp. 1-17
- PART ONE: Habits of Judgment
- CHAPTER ONE: The Sez-you State
- pp. 21-64
- CHAPTER TWO: The Punitive Habit
- pp. 65-106
- PART TWO: Public Figures of Speech
- CHAPTER THREE: In the Ditch with Wallace
- pp. 109-124
- CHAPTER FOUR: Oafs of Office
- pp. 125-144
- PART THREE: Stakes in the Heart of Dixie
- CHAPTER SIX: Black Alabamas
- pp. 183-212
- CHAPTER SEVEN: Baghdad as Birmingham
- pp. 213-232
- CHAPTER EIGHT: Invasions of Normalcy
- pp. 233-272
- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
- pp. 337-346