Reviews for Southern Tradition at Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought - Richard M. Weaver - Hardcover

The average rating for Southern Tradition at Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought - Richard M. Weaver - Hardcover based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-06-16 00:00:00 Codey Urban You have to wonder why W. J. Cash's The Mind of the South remains in-print and admired while this book has all but vanished. Scholarship plainly has nothing to do with it, since Cash's book is slapdash journalism modelled on H. L. Mencken, while Weaver gives us a carefully referenced intellectual history based on examination of primary sources. By today's standards, they're about equally racist and sexist, although Cash strikes me as the more elitist. Weaver's original subtitle, "A Study in the Survival of a Mind and a Culture", gives a better idea of the contents than "A History of Postbellum Thought". His premise is that Southern thinkers have groped toward but never achieved a comprehensive vision of their society, contributing to its weakness and eclipse vis à vis "Northern financial imperialism". Writing in 1943, he still hopes that enough Southern "non-materialism" and spirituality survive to be of use in the struggle against commerce and "moral defeatism", but he isn't at all optimistic about it. Weaver begins by describing the mores of the Old South, and how Southern thinkers of the antebellum era envisaged their society; their tentative explorations, hamstrung by prevailing anti-intellectualism and completely derailed by the Civil War, were never fully developed. The first postwar writings were mostly legalistic defenses of the Confederate cause; these were followed in turn by countless soldier's memoirs and homefront diaries, the most significant of which Weaver subjects to brief analysis. In this vast outpouring of personal history we see the Southern literati (including a surprisingly large number of women) primarily absorbed in personal and societal tragedy, often withdrawing into defensiveness, disillusionment, or religious fatalism, but sometimes also showing quiet acceptance or even satisfaction with the end of the plantation era and the rise of nationalism. Next comes an interesting description of how the lost antebellum world was reimagined over the course of the late nineteenth-century in Southern fiction: Weaver sees these literary self-portraits as gradually moving from outright romance, through tentative self-examination, to satire, and finally into full realism. Weaver concludes the book with a survey of Southern thought around the turn of the century. This section seems amorphous in comparison with the preceding sections, presumably because of a fracturing within Southern culture: defenders of the Confederacy continue to operate, with diminished energy and relevance; some thinkers embrace Northern commercialism while struggling to reconcile this with traditional folkways; Progressives seek reform of classism while ignoring racism; others are content to wallow in nostalgia for the antebellum world. Weaver does not chart twentieth-century developments, but in an epilogue ponders the continuing relevance of Southern thought. While some aspects of Southern culture remain remarkably durable, at this point the South seems to him muddled and confused, something of a spent force, although possibly containing "the revolutionary impulse of our future". The book is elegantly written and unfailingly of interest. It is at the very least a stimulating bibliographic guide which sends you scurrying off in search of the writers discussed. Why doesn't someone reprint it?

Review # 2 was written on 2019-06-28 00:00:00 Kyle Mcguire The Civil War was about much more than slavery. This book explains. An excellent book that deserves much more attention. Weaver composes a summary of Southern literature from the Civil War to the early 20th century. He pulls out the main themes, and tries to describe the spirit of the south. It is essentially a literature review of Southern culture. In describing the mind of the South and explaining why they fought, Weaver does a masterful job. Weaver is definitely sympathetic to the southern cause, and I think it's fair to say that he writes this volume almost as a defense or apologia of the southern mind. Even so, he is level-headed, and acknowledges the good and bad. The manuscript was originally his dissertation in the early 1940's, and was only published posthumously in 1968, yet it remains timely. This book is extremely well put together. Weaver describes the South as hierarchical; respecting nature, goodness, and authority; chivalrous; gentlemanly; deeply pious and religious; laid-back, passive, and unorganized. All of these traits are in contrast to the North, which could be described as egalitarian, progressive, and efficient. Above all, the difference is one of traditional vs. anti-traditional. Following the introduction, Weaver lays out cultural factors that produced the South: a feudal system, a code of chivalry, and a particular type of education and religion. He then describes how the Southern intellectual leaders defended themselves, all the way to the point of war, legally and philosophically. This is followed by a section on the mind of the southern soldier - why did he fight? Plenty of excerpts from diaries are included. Weaver then describes the literature produced in the decades following the Civil War: periodicals and fiction. Finally, Weaver steps back and puts the Southern tradition in a broader context. Overall a very good read for understanding the South, pre and post Civil war.