Redefining Southern Culture: Mind & Identity in the Modern South (review)

Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXXXI, No. 2, November 2000, pp. 234-240 REVIEWS Redefining Southern Culture: Mind & Identity in the Modern South. James C Cobb, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1999. 288 pp., notes and refs. $17.95 paper (ISBN 0-8203-2139-7). Derek H. Alderman Historian James C. Cobb discusses the persisting yet changing nature of southern identity in his latest book, Redefining Southern Culture. He focuses on the impact of "modernization" on the culture and mind of the American South, specifically in the years since Reconstruction. The book consists of eight essays by Cobb, six of which have been published previously. The chapters fit together reasonably well and the book is successful in putting several important writings and ideas in one place. One of the strengths of the book is that Cobb spends considerable time outlining not only his own ideas but also the work ofother scholars who have grappled with the study ofsouthern cultural identity. Consequently, Redefining Southern Culture is an important resource for those teaching graduate or advanced undergraduate classes on the region. Much ofthe book is concerned with southern historiography, a treat for serious students of the region but perhaps less enjoyable or useful for the casual reader. This is particularly the case in three chapters, "Beyond Planters and Industrialists," "Does Mind Still Matter?" and "From 'New South' to 'No South'." Cobb revisits Wilbur J. Cash's The Mind ofthe South, analyzing both the dominance and degradation ofthis classic text within the study ofsouthern history. He reconstructs a generation -long debate between supporters of Cash, who emphasize the continuity of planter leadership and values between Old and New South, and the school of thought associated with C. Van Woodward's Origins ofthe New South. The Woodward school emphasizes the role of change and revolution in southern industrial development. Viewing this debate as no longer productive, Cobb contends that southern culture is a "process," a negotiated synthesis in which the forces of continuity and change are not in conflict but interwoven and hence inseparable. The notion of southern culture being a process is discussed in detail in the chapter, "Modernization and the Mind of the South." The southern cultural landscape , according to Cobb, provides ample evidence of "southerners not so much resisting or surrendering to change as adapting to it or, in many cases, adapting it to their viewpoints and lifestyles." He cites the region's foodways, music, and Dr. Alderman is Assistant Professor in the Department ofGeography at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858. Internet: aldermand@mail.ecu.edu. REVIEWS235 consumer culture (e.g., Wal-Mart) as good examples of southern culture evolving and adapting to the forces of change. An emphasis on adaptation and evolution is certainly preferred over traditional perspectives, which view cultural identity in static, nonnegotiated terms. However, in emphasizing the adaptive nature of southern identity and culture, we should not lose sight of the political contests underlying the process ofadaptation. In addition to seeing southern culture as a process of adaptation, Cobb encourages scholars to examine the region in the larger context of national and international developments. With this in mind, Cobb devotes a chapter to discussing how the Great Depression/New Deal and the two World Wars restructured the many ways in which southerners farmed, industrialized, migrated, and related to each other racially. Surprisingly, despite this sage advice, Cobb neglects to mention the growing presence of Hispanic/Latino cultures in the South and their roles in the ongoing adaptation of southern culture. Unfortunately, in this respect, Redefining Southern Culture falls prey to the tendency, as do many books on the region, of reducing the South to "Black versus White" relations. One ofthe most enjoyable parts ofRedefining Southern Culture is Cobb's use of southern music as a cultural and historical indicator of the evolving southern experience. In "From Muskogee to Luckenbach," he interprets the national expansion of country music's appeal in the 1970s as a reflection of the nation finally accepting and admiring the South. Country music—and its themes of lost love and personal tragedy—resonated with Americans coming to grips with the unfulfilled progressivism of the 1960s and the humiliation of the Vietnam War and Watergate...