An NPR Best Book of 2022
The SOUTHERNIZATION of AMERICA
Bringing a multi-racial perspective from years of political reporting, award-winning authors Frye Gaillard and Pulitzer Prize winner Cynthia Tucker have carried forward the thesis of John Egerton’s seminal work, The Americanization of Dixie in their new collaboration, The Southernization of America, to consider the role of the South in shaping America’s current cultural and political landscape. They examine the morphing of the Southern strategy of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan into today’s Republican Party, the racial backlash against President Obama, family separation on our southern border, the rise of the religious right, white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, the death of George Floyd, and the attack on our nation’s capitol. With democracy under siege, they find hope in the South’s legacy rooted in the civil rights years that could ultimately lead the nation on the path to redemption during this critical moment in America’s turbulent history.