Myth, Media, and the Southern Mind

By Stephen A. Smith,

Book cover of Myth, Media, and the Southern Mind

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Book by Smith, Stephen A.

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American history

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1 author picked Myth, Media, and the Southern Mind as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

John Shelton Reed

Author

Smith, professor of communications at the University of Arkansas, examines the stories that Southerners have told about themselves—the “myths” of the South. The Old South/Lost Cause/New South myths “controlled Southern culture and Southern rhetoric for one hundred fifty years,” he argues, but by the mid-twentieth century, the strain between myth and reality finally became too great and “a period of mythic confusion,” ensued. By the 1970s, however, Southern artists, scholars, journalists, politicians, and preachers—both Black and white—had forged a new myth, based on the themes of distinctiveness, racial civility, and community. When Smith wrote, he was confident that there will…

From John's list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of.