ABSTRACT
The sociological truth-seeker is like the man in the old Greek fable who comes to ask questions of Proteus. The regional grip is the right one, and the only right one, for the sociological Proteus. Held in that grip, Proteus ceases to bewilder and begins to say what is to be done in this or that agitated corner. Southern sociologists have been at grips with Proteus for a good many years, and at last, in Howard Odum's Southern Regions, they have given the public an opportunity to know what look into Southern futurity they have obtained. In emphasizing that point, boldly and conclusively, Mr. Odum and his collaborators stand quite apart from some of their more partial contemporaries. Mr. Odum holds that the strategy of “mass attack upon the culture of a whole region” is neither common sense nor science.
