“The chapters—individually and collectively—make a powerful case for southern distinctiveness and illustrate the southernization of the relationship between non-southern states and the federal government.”—Journal of American Studies  
 
“The book is an interesting read for those concerned with the history of the South, but also for those interested in how newer issues such as the US-Mexican border and criminal justice policies fit within the region’s history.”—New Books in Political Science  
 
“Genuinely transnational in scope. . . . Make[s] significant contributions to our understanding of the relationship between the South and the federal government.”—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
 
"Original, illuminating, and provocative, Nation within a Nation is certain to challenge those who deny southern exceptionalism. These essays show the complexity, hypocrisy, and, yes, perversion in this tortured relationship."—Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln

"Feldman has put together an impressive array of scholars who intelligently analyze the peculiar, somewhat dysfunctional, somewhat hypocritical relationship of the South to the federal government."—Ralph Young, author of Dissent in America: The Voices That Shaped a Nation

"Documents the many complex nuances that make the relationship between the South and the federal government such a compelling story. Writing against the historiographical grain, collectively these essays support the idea of southern distinctiveness, a distinctiveness born out of persistent resentment to all things emanating from Washington."—Kari Frederickson, coeditor of Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida

From the Constitutional Convention to the Civil War to the civil rights movement, the South has exerted an outsized influence on American government and history while being distinctly anti-government. It continues to do so today with Tea Party politics. Southern states have profited immensely from federal projects, tax expenditures, and public spending, yet the region's relationship with the central government and the courts can, at the best of times, be described as contentious. Nation within a Nation features cutting-edge work by lead scholars in the fields of history, political science, and human geography, who examine the causes—real and perceived—for the South's perpetual state of rebellion, which remains one of its most defining characteristics.
 
Nation within a Nation features cutting-edge work by lead scholars in the fields of history, political science, and human geography who examine the causes—real and perceived—of the South’s perpetual state of rebellion, which remains one of its most defining characteristics.

Glenn Feldman (1962–2015) was professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Painting Dixie Red: When, Where, Why, and How the South Became Republican and Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South.

Sample Chapter(s):

Excerpt

Table of Contents

“The book is an interesting read for those concerned with the history of the South, but also for those interested in how newer issues such as the US-Mexican border and criminal justice policies fit within the region’s history.”
--New Books in Political Science

Provide[s] new insights... [into] the debate over southern distinctiveness.
--The Journal of American History

Genuinely transnational in scope. . . .[The essays] make significant contributions to our understanding of relationship between the South and the federal government.
--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

The essays in Nation Within a Nation: The American South and Federal Government help us comprehend both [the South’s] contempt and [its] dependence.
--Journal of Southern History