These dozen readable, fascinating biographical portraits offer wonderful insights into different aspects and different eras of Southern history. They exemplify the diversity of the region and indicate how a biographical approach can bring the past alive for students by humanizing it. An immensely teachable book.

John B. Boles, Rice University

The Human Tradition in the Old South offers thoughtful new observations on some prominent figures and revealing first perspectives on others less familiar. It reminds us forcefully that while, as the sum of its human parts, 'the South' may exist as face, the generic 'Southerner' is and always has been a fiction.

James C. Cobb, University of Georgia

The Old South has always fascinated and confused those who think about American history. The biographies in this collection present an engaging and compelling collective portrait of a remarkably complicated place.

Edward L. Ayers, dean of the College & Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia