Michael Perman

An adept distillation of the scholarship that has been produced since the 1950s-thoughtfully reorganized and updated to include a consideration of new works that have appeared since 1987-this new edition of Michael Perman's highly popular book examines the ways in which historians have interpreted what was perhaps the largest program of domestic reform undertaken in the history of the United States. In addition to accessing the impact of what might best be described as a maturation of the Revisionist history of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Perman introduces previously neglected areas of interest that have assumed new significance, such as the nature of the southern labor system after slavery and the role of African Americans in Reconstruction politics. The result is a lucid portrait of the post-Civil War years, one reluctant to employ such simplistic and judgemental terms as success or failure in assessing the complex problems of rebuilding the nation.

In The Southern Political Tradition, the distinguished southern historian Michael Perman explores the region's distinctive political practices and behaviors, primarily resulting from the South's perception of itself as a minority under attack from the 1820s to the 1960s. Drawing on his extensive research and understanding of southern politics, Perman singles out three features of the area's political history. He calls the first element ""The One-Party Paradigm,"" a political system characterized by one-party dominance rather than competition between two or more. The second feature, ""The Frontier and Filibuster Defense,"" illustrates a dramatic, preemptive response within Congress to any threat to the region's racial order. And in the third, ""The Over-Representation Mechanism,"" Perman describes the skillful manipulation of institutional mechanisms in Congress that resulted in greater influence than the region's relatively small population warranted. This anomalous tradition has all but disappeared since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Southern Political Tradition offers an insightful and provocative perspective on the South's political history.

In The Southern Political Tradition, the distinguished southern historian Michael Perman explores the region's distinctive political practices and behaviors, primarily resulting from the South's perception of itself as a minority under attack from the 1820s to the 1960s. Drawing on his extensive research and understanding of southern politics, Perman singles out three features of the area's political history. He calls the first element ""The One-Party Paradigm,"" a political system characterized by one-party dominance rather than competition between two or more. The second feature, ""The Frontier and Filibuster Defense,"" illustrates a dramatic, preemptive response within Congress to any threat to the region's racial order. And in the third, ""The Over-Representation Mechanism,"" Perman describes the skillful manipulation of institutional mechanisms in Congress that resulted in greater influence than the region's relatively small population warranted. This anomalous tradition has all but disappeared since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Southern Political Tradition offers an insightful and provocative perspective on the South's political history.

Designed to be either the primary anthology or textbook for the course, this best-selling title covers the Civil War's entire chronological span with a series of documents and essays.

A study of the political leadership of the Southern States during the decisive three years immediately after the American Civil War. This was the crucial moment when the terms and shape of the post-war sectional settlement were being deliberated and determined and its outcome depended on the policy pursued by the Federal government towards the leaders of the Confederacy as well as on the Southerners' response to whatever course was adopted. Consequently, the Southern politicians were at the centre of the whole problem of reunion. It is very surprising, therefore, that until this study there has been virtually no analysis by historians of the goals, strategies and priorities of the Confederates. Yet without this, the struggle over Southern readmission cannot properly be understood.