ABSTRACT
The Southern Tradition at Bay is divided into two sections, the first is a concise explanation of the heritage of the Old South and the second, following that society’s military defeat, details its spirited attempts to preserve the heritage by a diverse and sometimes frantic group of apologists. Religion was also a source of tension—one of the first such tensions—between the mind of New England and the mind of the South. As strong believers, Southerners were highly suspicious of skeptical people, especially on religious matters. The feisty defense of the heritage proved to Weaver that, at least for a while, the Southern mind proved to be “unreconstructed and unreconstructable,” representing a tough conservatism that might be a bulwark against the tide of modernity. The enormous scholarship that distinguishes The Southern Tradition at Bay alone makes it a daunting achievement.
