Content area
Full Text
C. Vann Woodward A Southern Historian and His Critics, edited by John Herbert Roper. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. xvii, 347 pp. Appendices, bibliography, index. $25.00.
THINK OF THE PREEMINENT HISTORIANS OF OUR TIME and the name C. Vann Woodward immediately leaps to mind. Think of the study of Southern history and Woodward's name becomes synonymous. Thus it is only fitting that John Roper, an accomplished scholar in his own right and author of a previous biographical study of Woodward ( C. Vann Woodward, Southerner, 1987), should turn his attention now to Woodward's writings and critics. Woodward has stated often that it is better to be criticized than to be forgotten and that the worst fate to befall an historian is to have his work ignored. Truly, such has never been the case with Woodward. And Roper has assembled a cast of fine scholars to examine the controversy and influence of some of the most significant studies of the American South ever published.
Yet, Woodward is no mere ivory-tower scholar. His scholarly books and his many essays have been directed toward a lay reading public as well with an eye for accessibility and readability;...