THE NEW SOUTH CREED: A Study in Southern Mythmaking

by Paul M. Gaston ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1970

Wishful thinking and calculated opportunism""--the New South Creed as reconstructed from primary sources. It began as a recipe for recovery and regional progress, then ossified into an ideology which denied social crises and economic stagnation by claiming that the renascence had been accomplished. As a program, it called for industrialization and rationalized, diversified agriculture. As a movement, it remains rather hazy--the author (a University of Virginia historian) focuses in leisurely detail on individual spokesmen without systematically excavating their bases of support (beyond sympathetic Northern investors) or the composition of their ""Old South"" opponents. With regard to race relations Gaston suggests that the creed supplied ""the intellectual and moral foundations of the Jim Crow system"" by promoting the myth of abundance and opportunity which made separate-but-equal a defensible arrangement. Though the South's ""internal colony"" heritage is discussed in interesting general terms, Gaston doesn't really try to account for the postbellum failure to industrialize and to modernize agriculture. He dwells perceptively on the growth of the magnolia-scented-past fable, its use by the New Southern spokesmen and its appeal in the North. But the actual Southern social fabric of the '70's and '80's and '90's remains the sheerest ""background."" Parenthetical references to ""Redeemer governments,"" ""populism,"" ""increasing violence,"" etc. only point up this deficiency. Specialists will have to make connections for themselves, while the book's explicit topical appeal and accessible style will attract general readers in American history.

Pub Date: April 10, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION