Zachary J. Lechner Book order

Set against the backdrop of the 1960s and 1970s, the narrative explores how various figures, including writers, musicians, and politicians, romanticized the white South as a bastion of tradition and community amidst societal turmoil. This idealization served as both a refuge from modern challenges like consumerism and racial unrest and a means to confront those very issues. The book delves into the cultural imagination of the South, revealing its complex role in shaping American identity during a time of significant change.

Uses imaginings of the South to illuminate the recent American past. Zachary Lechner bridges the fields of southern studies, southern history, and post- World War II American cultural and popular culture history in an effort to discern how conceptions of a tradition-bound, timeless South shaped Americans' views of themselves and their society.