Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South

By Bertram Wyatt-Brown and Richard J Milbauer Professor of History Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Book Overview

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, hailed in The Washington Post as "a work of enormous imagination and enterprise" and in The New York Times as "an important, original book," Southern Honor revolutionized our understanding of the antebellum South, revealing how Southern men adopted an ancient honor code that shaped their society from top to bottom.
Using legal documents, letters, diaries, and newspaper columns, Wyatt-Brown offers fascinating examples to illuminate the dynamics of Southern life throughout the antebellum period. He describes how Southern whites, living chiefly in small, rural, agrarian surroundings, in which everyone knew everyone else, established the local hierarchy of kinfolk and neighbors according to their individual and familial reputation. By claiming honor and dreading shame, they controlled their slaves, ruled their households, established the social rankings of themselves, kinfolk, and neighbors, and responded ferociously against perceived threats. The shamed and shameless sometimes suffered grievously for defying community norms. Wyatt-Brown further explains how a Southern elite refined the ethic. Learning, gentlemanly behavior, and deliberate rather than reckless resort to arms softened the cruder form, which the author calls "primal honor." In either case, honor required men to demonstrate their prowess and engage in fierce defense of individual, family, community, and regional reputation by duel, physical encounter, or war. Subordination of African-Americans was uppermost in this Southern ethic. Any threat, whether from the slaves themselves or from outside agitation, had to be met forcefully. Slavery was the root cause of the Civil War, but, according to Wyatt-Brown, honor pulled the trigger. Featuring a new introduction by the author, this anniversary edition of a classic work offers readers a compelling view of Southern culture before the Civil War.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195325176
• ISBN13: 9780195325171
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Pragmatic Approach to a Complex Issue

I had the privelege of reading Brown's work in the eleventh grade. It was recomended to me by a former History proffesor at West Point who was my American Studies instructor. While, as pointed out by some other reviews, the book is slow to read (such as other great authors such as Page Smith, and select works by Stephen Ambrose, it offers a vital and credible perspective into the society that we lost, in my opinion, when reconstruction began. I enjoyed the read (it took me two weeks) and found it enlightening and, while comprehensive and labyrinthian in references it is a populist perspectiveon the very elitist social environment in the pre-bellum South. Overall, I would reccomend this book to any intellectual, especially those young WASPs in the South who find their cultural influences constantly being bruised by hasty generalizations, who has an interest in the gentry class of the Old South. I would reccomend a parralel read with William Faulkner or other promenint Southern writers, such as Twain, as well.

An Important Book on the Causes of the Civil War

Slavery was a major cause of the civil war, and yet most Southerners did not own slaves. This is a very telling fact and an interesting question. Southern Honor is an interesting look at the concept of Honor in the south and how it tied into the culture of the whole region and all classes. When Northerners attack the south for slavery, because of the concept of honor, it became not just an attack on the slave owners, or the rich southerners it was an attack on the whole region and culture. This is an important fact when looking at the causes of the civil war. I enjoyed reading this book, I learned a lot from it, and it helped to explain why many Southerners did what they did. This is an important book to read when studying the civil war or the history of the South.

Not what I expected

When I purchased this book, I expected a topical history of the ways of the Old South. WRONG! This work is an in-depth sociological study of the way honor (and other areas of person) were perceived and displayed in that lost era. Not only is the exposition a shock for those who mourn for the Old South, but gives personal insight into the behavior of the region today. Excellent book - slow reading