ABSTRACT

In the decades that followed, the South's politics would often fall far short of the promise perceived in 1976, leaving many to despair as the supposed new departure in southern politics took on characteristics of intolerance and demagoguery once associated with the Solid South of the pre-civil rights era. This chapter explores the process of historiographical revision by focusing on key books that have altered our understanding of southern political history. In the seventeenth century, there was no identifiable region known as the South, or any distinctively southern style of politics to speak of. The historical literature on southern politics during eighteenth century years places a heavy emphasis on the primacy of Virginia. The role that southern politics played in this disastrous scenario has always been a subject of sharp debate, as persistent memories and sectionalized myths of the Civil War forestalled any possibility of historiographical consensus.