The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity

by James C. Cobb

Book Overview

"Cotton obsessed, Negro obsessed," Rupert Vance called it in 1935. "Nowhere but in the Mississippi Delta," he said, "are antebellum conditions so nearly preserved." This crescent of bottomlands between Memphis and Vicksburg, lined by the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, remains in some ways what it was in 1860: a land of rich soil, wealthy planters, and desperate poverty--the blackest and poorest counties in all the South. And yet it is a cultural treasure...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195089138
• ISBN13: 9780195089134
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Pure soil endlessly deep--dark and sweet

I must give the author credit for capturing the physical ethos of the Delta land. Like Eudora Welty, I am a strong believer in a "sense of place" and the description of the soil, rivers,vines,cane brakes,and trees is superb. The rich and fecund soil--"in the passionate embrace of deep-rooted trees and close-clinging vines." One can feel the heat rising and the Kudzu groping its tendrils through the subtropical landscape. With entire banks of soil cleaving into the frothing flood swollen Mississippi--the Congo Basin of the South. These are the rich bottom lands of William Faulkner's Bear novella and Percy's levee lanterns. Here black men and women developed a culture and even freedom that spawned much of the civil rights movement. Asians and Italians and Anglo-Saxon folks from the hill country all came together in a curious mix. The Delta is the most African part of America in many respects and remains a land of promise and despair--best illustrated in the music of the Delta Blues. And all the while the promise of the soil and the rich fecundity of the soil conjures up images of Antebellum Greek Revival homes next to sharecropper cottages. Less red clay and more black alluvium that was hardly a part of the historical Old South as it developed for the most part much later after the War. The book is but an introduction to a unique land.

Essential Reading for Blues Fans

I grew up as a Northerner; I don't think I put the pieces together until I matured as a Southerner visiting the Mississippi Delta. My goal was to research the lives of Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood Jr., Robert Johnson's best freind and stepson. Along with Rising Tide which put a sharp edge or racism for me, this was my guide to the historical background among which these seminal bluesmen grew up. The delta and its history was as much of the history of the blues as the musicians. Through this book and many visits with African-Americans living in poverty in the delta I began to understand the South in a way few Southerner will ever understand and/or be able to articulate.

The Most Southern Place on Earth

I couldn't disagree more with Cecil Fox's obtuse review of this book. I think Mr. Fox spent more time examining his 'Word of the Day' calendar than attempting to formulate a coherent review. In fact, his description of Cobb's work reads more like a pastiche of academic cliches than an opinion from a reader who might have actually read the book he was reviewing. Revisionism? Where? "Ideological rectitude?" What ideology was espoused? I thought the text was concise and honest about the South, the Delta, and regional identity. Apologist? Please see Mr. Fox's review of "Moon Handbooks Havana" for a textbook example where he equates the U.S. with a third-world country in comparison to Cuba and offers up the laughable non sequitur that "Civil liberties are no more endangered in Havana than in Alabama or the Bronx." If Mr. Fox did indeed grow up in the Delta, then his review more accurately reflects the pretentious dismisiveness of a prodigal son from Madison or Ridgeland than a sharecropper from Tutwiler. Cobb's focus on the elite as an oppresive force that shaped both the economy and society in the same manner that the Mississippi shaped the Delta might not be popular with all but will never be mistaken as revisionist.

Important Book

Love it or hate it, the South, and Mississipi in particular, looms large in the identity of America. "The Most Southern Place on Earth" does an outstanding job explaining how Mississippi became, well, Mississippi. It is just amazing how much this obscure and economicaly poor state has contributed to the arts and culture of the county.

The Most Southern Place on Earth, The Mississippi Delta and

I loved what the book! As a 4th generation Mississippi Deltan, seventh generation Mississippian, white , 48 year old male, I was very impressed with Mr Cobb's research. He certainly dispelled many of the myths that we were taught as we grew up from a segregated society to a desegregated society. I now live in Colorado but my family and friends still live in the Delta. I wish this book was required reading in the schools in the Delta as well as anywhere segregation and racism exists to help people better understand why these problems that continue to plague these areas will not go away. A great study on the Mississippi Delta with more fact than fiction.