The Southernization of America

A Story of Democracy in the Balance

By: Frye Gaillard, Cynthia Tucker

Narrated by: Diana Blue, Paul Heitsch

Pulitzer Prize-winner Cynthia Tucker and award-winning author Frye Gaillard reflect on the role of the South in America's long descent into Trumpism. In 1974, Southern author John Egerton published his seminal work, The Americanization of Dixie, reflecting on the double-edged reality of the South becoming more like the rest of the country and vice versa. Tucker and Gaillard dive deeper into that reality from the time that Egerton published his book until the present. They explore the "birtherism" of Donald Trump and the roots of the racial backlash against President Obama; the specter of family separation on our southern border, with its echoes of similar separations in the era of slavery; as well as the rise of the Christian right, demonstrations in Charlottesville, the death of George Floyd, and the attack on the capital—all of which, they argue, have roots that trace their way to the South. But Tucker and Gaillard see another side too, a legacy rooted in the civil rights years that has given us political leaders like John Lewis, Jimmy Carter, Raphael Warnock, and Stacy Abrams. The authors raise the ironic possibility that the South might lead the way on the path to redemption. They bring a multi-racial perspective and years of political reporting to bear on a critical moment in American history, a time of racial reckoning and of democracy under siege.

©2022 Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker (P)2023 Tantor

The female narrator sounds like AI

I found the content interesting. And the male narrator, who starts the book, was easy to listen to. But the female narrator is mechanical, choppy, mispronounces words, and sometimes uses emphases within sentences that seem inappropriate to the content. I think she might be AI. I can’t finish the book because I find her delivery so off putting.