| An updated third edition
C. Vann Woodward's The Burden of Southern History
remains one of the essential history texts of our time. In
it Woodward brilliantly addresses the interrelated themes
of southern identity, southern distinctiveness, and the strains
of irony that characterize much of the South's historical
experience. First published in 1960, the book quickly became
a touchstone for generations of students. The third edition
contains a chapter, "Look Away, Look Away," in which Woodward
finds a plethora of additional ironies in the South's experience.
It also includes previously uncollected appreciations of Robert
Penn Warren, to whom the book was originally dedicated, and
William Faulkner. This updated third edition also features
a new foreword by historian William E. Leuchtenburg in which
he recounts the events that led up to Woodward's writing The
Burden of Southern History, and reflects on the book's—and
Woodward's—place in the study of southern history. The
Burden of Southern History is quintessential Woodward—wise,
witty, ruminative, daring, and as alive in the twenty-first
century as when it was written.
C. Vann Woodward (1908–1999) was Sterling Professor
of History Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from
1961 until 1977. One of the leading historians of the century,
Woodward wrote several books about the American South, his
main field of interest. He edited Mary Chesnut's Civil
War, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for
history. His other major works include Tom Watson: Agrarian
Rebel; American Counterpoint; The Strange Career of
Jim Crow; Reunion and Reaction; Thinking Back: The
Perils of Writing History; and Origins of the New South, 1877–1913,
for which he received the Bancroft Prize. He served as president
of the Southern Historical Association, the Organization of
American Historians, and the American Historical Association,
and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. |
