The American South in the 1960's Author:Avery Leiserson "The South", suggests one of the contributors to this volume, "is America's exposed nerve...issues which are national in scope are the most intense, or at least most apparent, here". Race relations-the most explosive issue in the contemporary South-is just one significant factor in a region that has undergone tremendous social, economic, and pol... more »itical change in the postwar years.
In this timely and provocative work, based on a special issue of "The Journal of Politics", sixteen authorities on Southern politics and institutions dissect the major facets of "America's exposed nerve" with objectivity and keen insight.Their essays review the developments of the last decade and assess the current trends in the South's transition from a rural, underdeveloped, one-party, segregated society to an urban, industrialized, two-party, integrated one. Among the aspects of the contemporary South analyzed in detail are the changing climate of ideas, regional planning and development,white and negro attitudes toward political parties, the manipulated negro vote, the political roles of state legislatures and governors, the federal judiciary and political change, and the South in national politics.« less