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BOOK REVIEWS441 ough job of research, his analysis of Dr. Mudd's case is intelligent and balanced, and he writes in a clear, interesting fashion. Albert Castel Western Michigan University The Idea of the South: Pursuit of a Central Theme. Edited by Frank E. Vandiver. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Pp. xi, 82. $3.95.) The contributors to this volume address themselves to a familiar problem. In a series of papers originally presented as part of Rice University's centennial , the contributors follow in the footsteps of earlier commentators who have sought to discover what in Southern life has made that area a distinctive section. They argue from two directions. Some trace long-existing distinguishing themes. George Tindall outlines the different and paradoxical myths that have been absorbed into the Southern consciousness and perceptively suggests that it is the devotion to myths—of different kinds—which has been the root of much Southern behavior. Frank Vandiver sketches the longstanding , persistent pattern of Southern violence and offers it as the core of the Southern experience. T. Harry Williams argues, as he has done before , that there has been a tradition of romanticism in Southern politics which has caused its people to ignore current problems in melancholy and devoted contemplation of the past. At the same time, most of the contributors focus on the current South, partially from a statistical viewpoint, partially from a value-oriented condemnatory slant, and partially from a realization of the vast changes which have taken place in the section in this century. Richard Harwell calls on Southern writers to throw off their continued acceptance and glorification of the past's values in favor of realizing that history is moving in new directions . Louis Rubin uses William Faulkner as an example of one who could and did point to the new directions that the South must take. Harry Williams demonstrates through the career of Huey Long that it is possible for a Southern politician to successfully overcome traditional preconceptions and deal with political problems on the plane of reality. Finally, the late Walter Prescott Webb points out how much the South is developing and changing for the better; he is optimistic about the future as Southerners forget the past and fully develop their section's great wealth. A postscript by Hugh Patterson, publisher of the Arkansas Gazette, carries the optimistic theme even further. Unfortunately, this is a disappointing book. First of all, despite the editor's claim, there is little meaningful unity in the work. The authors approached the problem from personally chosen directions. There is, therefore, a disjointed quality to the essays. Furthermore, the exhortive nature of some of the material does not really enlighten as much on the nature of Southern life or the qualities of mind that may make Southerners different. And the generally optimistic tone in some of the essays appears quite strained com- 442civil war history ing, as it does, in the same year as Professor James Silver's Mississippi: The Closed Society. Some of this material and this tone may have a role to play but they are of little use, it seems to me, to students seeking to understand the section. A more important critical problem also exists. Even in the more perceptive articles in this collection there is no indication that the authors have considered whether the qualities identified as Southern—violence, commitment to myth, political romanticism, or change generally—mark that region alone. It can certainly be argued that each of these things, as well as other attributes identified as Southern, are not sectional but national phenomena. We have become increasingly aware in recent years that we can be (regardless of section) violent, anti-Negro, and deeply committed to romantic myths in a changing world. Differences between North and South may be of degree and of opportunity rather than stemming from different characteristics. Perhaps the time has come to reduce the stress on sectional differences and see them as separate parts of a common body of experience, rather than to stress differences and search out roots which may very well be all tangled together at the bottom. All in all, then, this collection is a very mixed bag...

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