Deep South - 2nd Edition by Allison Davis (Paperback)

About the Book

"Deep South was originally published in 1941, documenting in startling detail the nuances, character, and lived realities of racism in a southern town. Allison Davis and his co-authors, Burleigh and Mary Gardner, all went undercover, not revealing their scholarly project or even their association with one another. Their analysis notably revealed the importance of caste and class to both Black and White worldviews, and it anatomized how those are constructed, reified, and reinforced. Deep South is freshly relevant today to those interested in the concept of caste and how it continues to inform the many flavors of American inequality"--

Book Synopsis

As seen in the movie Origins, a classic examination of the lived realities of American racism, now with a new foreword from Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson.

First published in 1941, Deep South is a landmark work of anthropology, documenting in startling and nuanced detail the everyday realities of American racism. Living undercover in Depression-era Mississippi-not revealing their scholarly project or even their association with one another-groundbreaking Black scholar Allison Davis and his White co-authors, Burleigh and Mary Gardner, delivered an unprecedented examination of how race shaped nearly every aspect of twentieth-century life in the United States. Their analysis notably revealed the importance of caste and class to Black and White worldviews, and they anatomized the many ways those views are constructed, solidified, and reinforced.
​
This reissue of the 1965 abridged edition, with a new foreword from Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson-who acknowledges the book's profound importance to her own work-proves that Deep South remains as relevant as ever, a crucial work on the concept of caste and how it continues to inform the myriad varieties of American inequality.

Review Quotes

"Deep South still has important things for race and racism in the United States--for those who are willing to listen."-- "Southeastern Librarian"

About the Author

Allison Davis (1902-1983) was a pioneering anthropologist and longtime professor at the University of Chicago, where, in 1942, he became the first Black American to hold a full faculty position at a major white university. Burleigh B. Gardner (1902-1988) and Mary R. Gardner (1909-1983) were Harvard-trained social scientists.