Rethinking the South: Essays in Intellectual History

By Michael O'Brien and Michael O'Brien

Book Overview

Bringing together Michael O'Brien's pathbreaking essays on the American South, this book examines the persistence and vitality of southern intellectual history from the early nineteenth century to the present day. At once a broad survey of southern thought and a meditation on the subject as an academic discipline, Rethinking the South deftly integrates social history, literary criticism, and historiography as it positions the South within the wider traditions of European and American culture.

In his thoughtful introduction and throughout the ten essays that follow, O'Brien stresses the tradition of Romanticism as a central theme, binding togethere figures as disparate as critic Hugh Legare, literary scholar Edwin Mims, poets Richard Henry Wilde and Allen Tate, and historians W. J. Cash and C. Vann Woodward.

First published as a collection in 1988, these essays confirm O'Brien's position as a pioneer in establishing and defining the enterprise of southern intellectual history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820315257
• ISBN13: 9780820315256
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Historic Tour of the Mind of the South

"Rethinking the South" is a splendid collection of essays by Michael O'Brien looking at the intellectual history of the South. Unlike many scholars, O'Brien does not limit himself to either the Old South or the post-bellum period. O'Brien covers the South from 1800 to the modern age so specialists of a particular period may be less than satisfied with this book. O'Brien is at his best when he looks at individuals and, for all his strengths as an intellectual historian, one can not help but think he missed his calling. No way around it; O'Brien has a knock for biography and looking at the minds of certain individuals. He does that here with excellent sketches of Hugh Legare (who O'Brien did write a biography of) and C. Vann Woodward; a solid look at Edwin Mims; and a blistering look at W.J.Cash that simply fails to do justice to the man and his pivotal "The Mind of the South." Despite the poor essay on Cash (and to his credit, O'Brien seems to recognize the weakness of that piece), "Rethinking the South" is a wonderful contribution to American intellectual history. Even better, this collection of essays ranks as some of the most readable work of intellectual history I have read in way too long.