AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usBooks discussed in this article:by Jill AbramsonSimon and Schuster, 544 pp., $30.00; $18.00 (paper)by David HalberstamUniversity of Illinois Press, 771 pp., $25.95 (paper)by Dan BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Press, 256 pp., $29.95edited by Frederic B. Hill and Stephens BroeningRowman and Littlefield, 299 pp., $42.00; $24.00 (paper)by Dan KennedyForeEdge, 281 pp., $29.95by Michael SchudsonPolity, 213 pp., $69.95; $22.95 (paper)by Matthew PressmanHarvard University Press, 321 pp., $29.95by Alan RusbridgerFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 440 pp., $30.00; $20.00...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usBooks discussed in this article:by Jill AbramsonSimon and Schuster, 544 pp., $30.00; $18.00 (paper)by David HalberstamUniversity of Illinois Press, 771 pp., $25.95 (paper)by Dan BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Press, 256 pp., $29.95edited by Frederic B. Hill and Stephens BroeningRowman and Littlefield, 299 pp., $42.00; $24.00 (paper)by Dan KennedyForeEdge, 281 pp., $29.95by Michael SchudsonPolity, 213 pp., $69.95; $22.95 (paper)by Matthew PressmanHarvard University Press, 321 pp., $29.95by Alan RusbridgerFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 440 pp., $30.00; $20.00...WW…

Before the Civil War, Southern slaveholders used to claim that their labor system was more humane than “wage slavery” in the factories of the industrializing North. They didn’t win that argument, but the idea took root that the South, during and after slavery, did not have a true capitalist economy. In 1930, twelve Southern writers (all white men) published a collection of essays, titled “I’ll Take My Stand,” that opened with a declaration that they “all tend to support a Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best...…Before the Civil War, Southern slaveholders used to claim that their labor system was more humane than “wage slavery” in the factories of the industrializing North. They didn’t win that argument, but the idea took root that the South, during and after slavery, did not have a true capitalist economy. In 1930, twelve Southern writers (all white men) published a collection of essays, titled “I’ll Take My Stand,” that opened with a declaration that they “all tend to support a Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best...WW…