Description
Book SynopsisThe Mississippi Delta, an alluvial basin bordered on the Mississippi River, 150 miles at its widest extent, is said to begin ''in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and end on Catfish Row in Vicksburg. Ironically, the Delta''s greatest economic days were in the post-Civil War period when its rich land was fully exploited for cotton cultivation. It is a region of contrasts, with wealthy pleasure-loving planters controlling its wealth and nearly two-thirds of its population poor blacks. It reacted most strongly against the racial changes of the 1950s and 1960s and was a leading centre of the White Citizens Councils'' resistance to desegregation.Cobb breaks new ground in describing the economic development of the Delta since the 1930s. The Federal Government provided the money for this revival, but Cobb shows how these funds went almost exclusively to the wealthy, established planters, since the appropriations were funnelled through Mississippi''s reactionary congressmen. Further, the Civil Rights revolution has brought the vote to Delta blacks but has kept economic power still in control of the planters.The Delta is a region with a rich cultural heritage. It is the subject of William Faulkner''s and Eudora Welty''s fiction; it fostered such writers as Shelby Foote. Willie Moris, Walker Percy, Elizabeth Spencer; a great heritage of black blues singers comes from the region, among them Muddy Waters and B.B. King. Cobb''s book is a cultural history that explores the political, economic, social, and cultural heritage of the region, accounts for its uniqueness, and criticizes its parochialism and racism.
Trade Review"This is a solidly researched and well-written book that delineates one of the most disturbing chapters and places in American history. It deserves to be widely read not only as a story of this most southern place but also as a story of the United States."--The Journal of Southwest Georgia History "The work is best as a clear-thinking and sensitive history of racial and worker exploitation and as an argument that such exploitation has not been a great exception to the rest of American history but a particularly vivid culmination of it."--Ted Ownby, University of Mississippi "Well researched, great little details and stories make it fascinating. A good historical perspective of Delta region."--Ron Bernthal, Sullivan County Community College "Fascinating."--Philip Scranton, Rutgers University "Well written, and an excellent addition to the literature on the South since the Civil War. A must read!"--J. Paul Leslie, Nicholls State University "A lively, compassionate and disturbing book based on a wealth of sources."--The New York Times Book Review "Extensive, engrossing, and literate."--Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University "An enthralling new history....Cobb's well-researched, well-written book is 'must' reading for anyone interested in the Delta."--Lexington Herald-Leader "Cobb...painstakingly lays out the historical roots for the Delta's huge impact on American history....Fascinating history."--Fanfare "Fulfilling the ironic meaning of the title, James Cobb provides the first comprehensive history of the Mississippi Delta to appear in half a century....His exposition of the often misunderstood sharecrop and tenant systems is a much needed contribution, but the sections devoted to the Delta's distinctive cultural life, both white and black, are outstanding. Like some of the notable works by Delta writers, whom Cobb discusses, The Most Southern Place on Earth will take its place among the classic texts in Southern studies."--Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida, author of Honor and Violence in the Old South "A classic study that probes complex worlds of race and class in the Mississippi Delta with unrelenting honesty."--William Ferris, Director, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, The University of Mississippi "The Mississippi Delta is God's laboratory for this old republic. Its wealth and poverty, arrogance and humility, passion and reason, black and white in a raw mix found no other place in the nation. How it comes out there may foretell the future of this country. No other author knows its history so well and puts it down fact by anguished fact in such compelling fashion. Anyone who wants to find the soul of this civilization needs to read what James Cobb has written."--Hugh Sidey, Washington Contributing Editor, Time Magazine "A brilliant book. Aside from providing a fascinating and readable portrait of the nation's most interesting subregion, James Cobb's remarkable study is apt to revolutionize the way we define southern culture. The Most Southern Place on Earth is a revealing, absorbing, and disturbing work."--Numan V. Bartley, University of Georgia "A virtual textbook crammed with facts about slavery, share cropping, the masculine perspective of the emerging blues tradition, red-lining, poverty politics, the complacency of the white elite and the unrealized triumphs of the civil rights era....Cobb pulls no punches in describing this sweet yet vexing land."--The Miami Herald "A stimulawting work ideally suited for an upperclassman seminor on southern identity."--Bill McBride, Louisiana School for Math, Science and Art "A benchmark work on the Mississippi Delta....Brilliant....Must reading....Will serve as fertile ground for empirical and further historical research on the Delta for decades to come."--Rural Sociology
Table of ContentsIntroduction: "Pure Soil, Endlessly Deep, Dark, and Sweet" 1. Plantation Frontier 2. "The Stern Realities of War 3. A "Harnessed Revolution" 4. Conquering the Plantation Frontier 5. New South Plantation Kingdom 6. A World Apart 7. "The Deepest South" 8. "We Are at the Crossroads" 9. "A Man's Life Isn't Worth a Penny with a Hole in It" 10. "A Testing Ground for Democracy" 11. "Somebody Done Nailed Us on the Cross" 12. "The Blues Is a Lowdown Shakin' Chill" 13. "More Writers per Square Foot ..." Epilogue: An American Region Notes Index
