The Problem South

This lucidly written study makes a bold argument for reimagining how the South became modernized, how liberalism was constructed, and how the region was part of a worldwide process. Imaginatively conceived and original in its conclusions, Ring s book makes a significant contribution to the literature about the Progressive Era South that will force us to reconsider old assumptions and rethink how we frame the Problem South into a global context. William A. Link, author of "The Paradox...
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This lucidly written study makes a bold argument for reimagining how the South became modernized, how liberalism was constructed, and how the region was part of a worldwide process. Imaginatively conceived and original in its conclusions, Ring s book makes a significant contribution to the literature about the Progressive Era South that will force us to reconsider old assumptions and rethink how we frame the Problem South into a global context. William A. Link, author of "The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880 1930"; "The Problem South" is an extraordinary reimaging of the New South. The book is, all at once, a complementary, synthetic, and constructively revisionist text. Elegantly and persuasively, Ring plots a new narrative of the nation s most complicated and historically significant region and sets her story against a layered local, regional, national, and global backdrop. Matthew Pratt Guterl, author of "American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation";"Natalie Ring s important study of the South s problems at the turn of the twentieth century examines not only single-crop agriculture, disease, poor whites, and racism, but also reaches beyond the U.S. and contextualizes southern distinctiveness in an international colonial perspective. Her careful research, clear analysis, and strong argument complicate the history of the progressive/unprogressive South and its halting steps toward modernism." Pete Daniel, Former President, Organization of American Historians"