Ethnicity - (New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture) by Celeste Ray & Charles Reagan Wilson (Paperback)

About the Book

"Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi."

Book Synopsis

Transcending familiar categories of "black" and "white," this volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture complicates and enriches our understanding of "southernness" by identifying the array of cultures that combined to shape the South. This exploration of southern ethnicities examines the ways people perform and maintain cultural identities through folklore, religious faith, dress, music, speech, cooking, and transgenerational tradition.

Accessibly written and informed by the most recent research that recovers the ethnic diversity of the early South and documents the more recent arrival of new cultural groups, this volume greatly expands upon the modest Ethnic Life section of the original Encyclopedia. Contributors describe 88 ethnic groups that have lived in the South from the Mississippian Period (1000-1600) to the present. They include 34 American Indian groups, as well as the many communities with European, African, and Asian cultural ties that came to the region after 1600. Southerners from all backgrounds are likely to find themselves represented here.

Review Quotes

"Any serious student of Southern History will want access to the "New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture"."
-- "The Historian"

"Gathers a wide variety of useable information for scholars and non-scholars alike."
-- "Louisiana History"

"Each essay and individual entry is concise, informative and well written."
-- "American Reference Books Annual"

For newcomers, natives, and anyone else, this volume on ethnicity in the U.S. South is at once eye-opening, thorough, and engrossing.
--James Peacock, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill