Too often depicted as a region with a single, dominant history and a static culture, the American South actually comprises a wide range of unique places and cultures, each with its own history and evolving identity. John Shelton Reed's Mixing It Up is a medley of writings that examine how ideas of the South, and what it means to be southern, have changed over the last century. Through essays, op-eds, speeches, statistical reports, elegies, panegyrics, feuilletons, rants, and more, Reed's penetrating observations, wry humor, and expansive knowledge help him to examine the South's past, survey its present, and venture a few modest predictions about its future. Touching on an array of topics from the region's speech, manners, and food, to politics, religion, and race relations, Reed also assesses the work of other pundits, scholars, and South-watchers.
From Appalachia to New Orleans, Mixing it Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany offers a collection of lively prose and provocative observations about this ever-changing region and its people.
Author Biography:
John Shelton Reed, author of a dozen books, innumerable articles, and a country song about the South, served as the Chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and is cofounder and Éminence Grease of the Campaign for Real Barbecue (TrueCue.org). He lives in Chatham County, North Carolina, and taught for many years at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
