Origins of the New South, 1877-1913

Winner of the Bancroft Prize

After more than two decades, Origins of the New South is still recognized both as a classic in regional historiography and as the most perceptive account yet written on the period which spawned the New South.

Historian Sheldon Hackney recently summed it up this way:
“The pyramid still stands. Origins of the New South has survived relatively untarnished through twenty years of productive scholarship, including the eras of consensus and of the new radicalism. . . . Woodward recognizes both the likelihood of failure and the necessity of struggle. It is this profound ambiguity which makes his work so interesting. Like the myth of Sisyphus, Origins of the New South still speaks to our condition.”

This enlarged edition contains a new preface by the author and a critical essay on recent works by Charles B. Dew.