In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

285 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To borrow a phrase from Will Percy, it has taken a lot of other people’s love, goodwill, money, time, and energy to make something out of me that doesn’t look like the Good Lord slapped it together absentmindedly. So it goes with this book. It is a singular pleasure to put in writing what I feel about the people and institutions that have helped me. This book was made possible by financial support from the Rice University History Department; the Rice University Humanities Research Center; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the National Endowment for the Humanities ; the Gordon Gray Fund at Harvard University; the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University; the Arthur Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; the Deep South Regional Humanities Center at Tulane University (now the New Orleans Gulf South Center); the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and History Department. I would like to thank the staff at the University of North Carolina Press, especially my editors Chuck Grench and Jay Mazzocchi. Like most poor souls who grow up to be writers, I have had so many wonderful teachers. Ricks Carson and Stan Gillespie taught me to love books. Natasha Tretheway taught me to love words and to respect their power. When I was an undergraduate at Auburn, Joseph Kicklighter, Donna Bohanon , Wayne Flint, and Ed Harrell taught me history and inspired me with their commitment to their craft. Ward Allen taught me to be slow to form judgments and quick to turn to the Oxford English Dictionary. David Carter started out as my teacher and has become a lifelong friend, confidant, and co-conspirator. Somewhere along the way he picked up an immoderate helping of human kindness, and I cannot imagine him other than to see his nodding head, his affirming smile. John Boles is the best adviser a graduate student could ever ask for. He is patient, available, and generous, and this project would have never seen completion were it not for his constant support. At Rice, I was also fortunate to study with Thomas Haskell, Allen Matusow, Ussama Makdisi, Kerry Ward, 286 : Acknowledgments and Ira Gruber, all of whom challenged me to become a more reflective historian . Chandler Davidson was and remains a model of scholarly generosity. Alex Lichtenstein was an early and persistent advocate; he read many drafts of this project and has always supported me. A year-long Andrew W. Mellon research seminar led by Caroline Levander led me to think about history, literature , and culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. Ann Ziker, Molly Robey, Liz Fenton, Greg Eow, Randal Hall, Scott Marler, Connie Sehat, Luke Harlow, and Meg Olsen were excellent readers, friends, and colleagues. I owe special thanks to Gale Kenny for her many and insightful readings of early drafts of this book. David L. Davis is a singularly compassionate soul, and I am happy that our paths merged for a too-brief season. Anne Chao is a gracious and generous friend, and I would not have made it through graduate school without her. In Cambridge, Nancy Sommers was welcoming and beneficent, and she gave me a wonderful opportunity to teach Harvard undergraduates and still have time to write. Tom Jehn, Karen Heath, Gordon Harvey, Jane Rosenzweig , Pat Bellanca, and Suzanne Lane were excellent people to work with on the vexing problem of how to teach writing. Denny Kinlaw unearthed some obscure sources for me that were crucial for the book. Also, I was lucky to come across a group of sassy and mischievous friends, whom I miss dearly: Jill Constantino, Michael Baran, Jim Herron, Rachel Meyer, Ken Urban, David Haglund, Marlon Kuzmick, Steve Sutherland, and Salvatore Scibona made my life in Cambridge really lovely. The Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill granted me a year-long fellowship to revise this book. This time was critical for me in my thinking and writing about Percy, and I am especially grateful for the generous support of Harry Watson and Joe Flora. The center also happens to employ and attract the nicest bunch of people one is liable to run across; Jacqueline Hall, Bill Ferris, Fitz Brundage, Ayse Erginer, Dave Shaw, Hodding Carter III, Tim West, Fred Hobson, and Barb Call all made my time in Chapel Hill rich, productive, and fun...

Share