Mixing It Up: A South-watcher's Miscellany

As its title suggests, John Shelton Reeds Mixing It Up is a medley, a mashup of sundry writings on southern subjects. It collects essays, reviews, and op-eds; speeches and statistical reports; elegies, panegyrics, feuilletons, and rants; two interviews and a recipe (for a bourbon and barbecue sauce cocktail), written over the last half-century by one of the regions most esteemed commentators.Reed examines the Souths past, surveys its present, and ventures a few modest predictions about its future. He touches on topics including politics, speech, manners, religion, race relations, and food. He also assesses what has been written by some other observers of the South journalists, historians, political scientists, and a politician. His focus ranges from Appalachia to New Orleans; along the way, he offers a variety of fascinating observations about changes in the region and its people for example, southerners are now more likely to claim that they are descended from an American Indian than from a Confederate soldier. He also adds new perspectives on the Souths complex and troubled history.