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Journal ArticleDOI

Southern Exceptionalism and the Perils of Region

17 May 2018-The Professional Geographer (Routledge)-Vol. 70, Iss: 4, pp 678-686
TL;DR: The concept of region remains salient in popular popular... as mentioned in this paper, despite contemporary political trends associated with the rise of Donald Trump seem to confound traditional regional designations in the United States.
Abstract: Contemporary political trends associated with the rise of Donald Trump seem to confound traditional regional designations in the United States. Yet the concept of region remains salient in popular ...
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon as mentioned in this paper is a well-known history of the United States economy, and it has been widely cited as a seminal work in economic analysis.
Abstract: The conclusion of Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth is, in the author’s own words, “startling.” According to Gordon, a Northwestern University economist, the United States has entered a period of permanent economic stagnation that will be marked above all by growing social inequality and poverty. The tone of the reviews of Gordon’s book points to growing anxiety at the commanding heights of the financial aristocracy. “Perhaps the future isn’t what it used to be,” writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. “And you have to wonder about the social and political consequences of another generation of stagnation or decline in working-class incomes.” In the Wall Street Journal, Edward Glaeser’s review, titled “Those Were the Days,” notes that “Mr. Gordon has data on his side.” Glaeser writes, “Looking toward the future, whatever miracles come from Silicon Valley, they are (as Mr. Gordon convincingly argues) likely to have a relatively modest impact on GDP. But I suspect they will do little to help the employment prospects for the more than 15 percent of men aged 25 to 54 who are jobless.” Similar concerns can be found in Foreign Affairs and the Financial Times. Writing in Prospect magazine, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers calls Gordon’s findings “disturbing.” He writes, “I wish that I could convincingly rebut his claims.” In other words, the period of relative capitalist stability in the United States has come to an end. According to Gordon, the postwar period of rapid growth was an aberration that will not be repeated. The “social and political consequences” of this are, as Krugman suggests, immense. The New York Times columnist, speaking on behalf of the ruling class, fears that tens or hundreds of millions of workers and young people will be forced into social struggle against the corporations and the government. This increasingly self-conscious fear of social revolution, bound up with a frantic and existential drive for profit, will further animate the deeply anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies in the ruling class. The essential conclusion that flows from Gordon’s book, which the author himself avoids, is that the world political situation is headed toward either social revolution or war and dictatorship. The value of Gordon’s book lies in its synthesis of economic empiricism and historical analysis. He begins in the year 1870, in the aftermath of the Civil War, which abolished slavery and marked the triumph of the wage labor system throughout the entire US. Gordon divides the history of post-bellum capitalist development into distinct periods: 1870 to 1920, 1920 to 1970, and 1970 to the present. A major strength of the book is the fact that Gordon tracks changes in the productive capacity of the US economy not only through standard measures of gross domestic product and annual income, but also by taking into account the impact of technological innovation on the living standards of the population. After analyzing 145 years of American growth, Gordon concludes that annual growth from 2015 to 2040 will be 1.20 percent, with all measures of productivity as well as GDP growth per person remaining drastically lower than during the periods of 1920 to 1970 and 1970 to 2014. That is, the United States economy is in terminal crisis and living standards for the vast majority of the population will continue to deteriorate.

148 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Kruse offers a convincing argument detailing how corporate titans united America around an agenda of Christian libertarianism (anti-New De..., which he called New De...
Abstract: In this meticulously researched and compelling book, Kevin Kruse offers a convincing argument detailing how corporate titans united America around an agenda of Christian libertarianism (anti-New De...

44 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Feb 2020-Cities
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used a case study to reveal how two types of African American neighborhoods near new growth centers, rim villages and streetcar suburbs, become gentrified, revealing that while dynamics of economic change restructure neighborhoods in Charlotte, they also destabilize infrastructure that supports economically and socially struggling African American communities.

16 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: Massey as discussed by the authors rastrea el desarrollo de ideas sobre la estructura social del espacio y el lugar, and the relacion of ambos con cuestiones de genero and ciertos debates dentro del feminismo.
Abstract: En estos dias de aceleracion global por un lado e intensificacion de los nacionalismos locales por otro, ?como deberiamos pensar en el espacio y el lugar? Este nuevo libro reune los escritos clave de Doreen Massey sobre este debate. En el argumenta que hemos visto algunas lecturas problematicas de ambos terminos en los ultimos anos, y propone un enfoque alternativo mas adecuado a los problemas que enfrentan las ciencias sociales en la actualidad. Massey ha organizado estos debates en torno a los tres temas de espacio, lugar y genero. Ella rastrea el desarrollo de ideas sobre la estructura social del espacio y el lugar, y la relacion de ambos con cuestiones de genero y ciertos debates dentro del feminismo. Comenzando con la economia y las estructuras sociales de produccion, Massey desarrolla una nocion mas amplia de espacialidad como producto de la interseccion de las relaciones sociales. Sobre esta base propone un enfoque de los "lugares" esencialmente abierto e hibrido, pero siempre provisional y controvertido. Los temas se entrecruzan con gran parte del pensamiento actual sobre la identidad dentro del feminismo y los estudios culturales. Los capitulos van desde estudios de los conceptos de lugar empleados en debates sobre desarrollo regional desigual y problemas del centro de la ciudad hasta argumentos sobre la relacion entre la conceptualizacion del espacio / lugar y la construccion social de las relaciones de genero.

5,063 citations


"Southern Exceptionalism and the Per..." refers background in this paper

  • ...We should not be lulled into thinking that redrawing the boundaries of region to be more “accurate,” or even recognizing the fuzziness of regional boundaries, is sufficient to produce the progressive sense of place envisioned by Massey (1994) and others....

    [...]

Book
01 Sep 1984
TL;DR: Key's book explains party alignments within states, internal factional competition, and the influence of the South upon Washington as discussed by the authors, and also probes the nature of the electorate, voting restrictions, and political operating procedures.
Abstract: More than thirty years after its original publication, V. O. Key's classic remains the most influential book on its subject. Its author, one of the nation's most astute observers, drew on more than five hundred interviews with Southerners to illuminate the political process in the South and in the nation.Key's book explains party alignments within states, internal factional competition, and the influence of the South upon Washington. It also probes the nature of the electorate, voting restrictions, and political operating procedures. This reprint of the original edition includes a new introduction by Alexander Heard and a profile of the author by William C. Havard. "A monumental accomplishment in the field of political investigation." Hodding Carter, New York Times "The raw truth of southern political behavior." C. Vann Woodward, Yale Review "[This book] should be on the 'must' list of any student of American politics." Ralph J. Bunche V.O. Key (1908-1963) taught political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Harvard universities. He was president of the American Political Science Association and author of numerous books, including American State Politics: An Introduction (1956); Public Opinion and American Democracy (1961); and The Responsible Electorate (1966)."

2,171 citations


"Southern Exceptionalism and the Per..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Such works focused on the decades after the Civil War, when Southern elites solidified their power by disenfranchising blacks, as well as many poor whites, through poll taxes and literacy tests (Key 1949; Woodward 1951)....

    [...]

  • ...The post–Civil War political structure in the South had been built on white supremacy, voter suppression, and one-party rule (Key 1949)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize, this book is the first detailed history of suburban life in America from its origin to the drive-in culture of today as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize, this book is the first detailed history of suburban life in America from its origin to the drive-in culture of today.

1,816 citations

Book
01 Jan 1941

728 citations


"Southern Exceptionalism and the Per..." refers background in this paper

  • ...One notable contribution to this genre was The Mind of the South, in which journalist and native South Carolinian W. J. Cash (1941) identified a set of “established habits of thought, sentiments, prejudices, and values” (xlviii) among white Southerners that made them violence prone and hostile to…...

    [...]