On Southern History and Its Historians: A Review Article

ON SOUTHERN HISTORY AND ITS HISTORIANS: A Review Article Eugene D. Genovese As a tribute to Professor Fletcher M. Green, his students have offered southern historians in general a book of extraordinary value.1 Honoring an old professor by the presentation of a volume of mediocre , vaguely connected essays is one of the drearier practices of the profession, but Professor Green's students, led by Arthur S. Link and Rembert W. Patrick, apparently resolved to do better and indeed have done much better. If Writing Southern History contained nothing more than its extensive bibliographies, every southern historian would want to own a copy. As it is, it is also a sensitive critical guide to the literature and a quarry of ideas for work to be done. The editors observe in their preface that no single volume "has presented Southern historiography systematically, in detail, and in all its immense variety." They and their associates proposed to fill that need and have acquitted themselves admirably. If we may judge by the written record, published and unpublished , Professor Green ranks as a foremost graduate teacher, as well as a historian of talent and versatility. During his career he guided, at last count in 1964, 150 students through the M.A. and ninety through the Ph.D., with twenty-five additional dissertations in preparation . Anyone who takes the opportunity to visit the library at Chapel Hill and read their output cannot fail to be astonished at the high professional standards adhered to even in the weakest efforts. There are seventeen essays in this volume, and the mere listing of their titles and authors tells a remarkable story: (1) "The Colonial South," by Hugh F. Ranldn; (2) "The American Revolution: Southern Founders of a National Tradition," by Charles G. Sellers, Jr.; (3) "'The Critical Period,' the Constitution, and the New Nation," by Ernest M. Lander, Jr.; (4) "Jeffersonian Democracy and the Origins of Sectionalism ," by Malcolm C. McMillan; (5) "The Jacksonian Era," by Ed1 Writing Southern History: Essays in Historiography in Honor of Fhtcher M. Green. Edited by Arthur S. Link and Rembert W. Patrick. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965. Pp. x, 502. $12.00.) 170 win A. Miles; (6) "Plantation and Farm: The Agricultural South," by James C. Bonner; (7) "African Slavery," by Bennett H. Wall; (8) "The Mind of the Antebellum South," by Herbert J. Doherty, Jr.; (9) "The Coming of the Civil War," by Charles E. Cauthen, completed by Lewis P. Jones; (10) "The Confederate States of America: The Homefront," by Mary Elizabeth Massey; (11) "The Confederate States of America at War on Land and Sea," by John G. Barrett; (12) "Reconstruction," by Vernon L. Wharton; (13) "The 'New South," by Paul M. Gaston; (14) "Southern Negroes Since Reconstruction: Dissolving the Static Image," by George B. Tindall; (15) "The Agrarian Revolt," by Allen J. Going; (16) "The Southern Mind Since the Civil War," by Horace H. Cunningham; and (17) "The TwentiethCentury South," by Dewey W. Grantham, Jr. Finally, the book contains a bibliography of Professor Green's writings, compiled and introduced by J. Isaac Copeland, and a good index. The policy followed by the editors contributed to both the strengths and weaknesses of the book as a whole: "The essays vary in style, emphasis, and interpretation, for the editors demanded no bridling conformity. Authors and editors had a common purpose—to produce a book of considerable coherence and unity that would do justice to the literature on the history of the South." This wise policy guaranteed a good book since the participants are men of quality, but it also carried risks. The coherence and unity, although considerably in evidence , are strained by different interpretations of the task. Some of the contributions are interpretative historiographical essays; some are little more than annotated bibliographies. Most try to follow a middle course—these are the most valuable—and to list the most important general and monographic works while providing a critical assessment of historiographical trends. In view of the focus of this journal, I shall concentrate on chapters 4 to 12 (roughly, 1828-1877), but would warn that several of the best efforts—notably those of Rankin, Gaston, Tindall, and Grantham —must therefore...