Introduction

For the past twenty-five years the Old South in the United States has been the focus of some of the most interesting, innovative, and influential historical scholarship. In addition to the continuing vigor of old debates, both established and younger scholars are producing exciting work in the study of culture and the interaction of gender, race, and class in the Old South. The essays presented here include some of this diverse scholarship and introduce some of the central debates about the nature of society and culture in the Old South. They also offer some outstanding examples of current methodological and theoretical models available to historians.