Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1975. This is a history of southern political life since the New Deal and World War II, encompassing a crucial epoch: an attempted Second Reconstruction of the South. The authors focus on the electoral response to candidates and issues. The authors contend that, despite the nationalizing and homogenizing forces that eroded much of the South's distinctiveness during the postwar years, the region's historical legacy perpetuated its distinctive patterns of cultural and political life. Further, the authors contend that despite the virtual destruction of the South's four inherited institutions of political sectionalism during the years of the Second Reconstructiondisenfranchisement, malapportionment, a one-party system, and de jure racial segregationthe new southern politics maintained a deep racial division that has militated against class coalitions, especially across racial lines, and has permitted government by relatively insulated elites.
Table of ContentsIllustrations
Tables
Preface
Chapter 1. The American Party Systems and the South
Chapter 2. The Populist-New Deal Legacy: One-Party Politics in the Postwar Decade
Chapter 3. One-Party State Politics and the Impact of Desegregation
Chapter 4. The Emergence of Two-Party Politics: Republicanism in the New South
Chapter 5. The Politics of Turmoil
Chapter 6. The Ambiguous Resurgence of the New South
Chapter 7. The 1972 Elections
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Note on Methodology and Data Sources
Bibliographical Essay
Index
