Mixing It Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany

As its title suggests, John Shelton Reed’s 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 region’s most esteemed commentators.

Reed examines the South’s 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 South’s complex and troubled history.