Book Description

This volume of The new Encyclopedia of Southern Culture offers an authoritative and readable reference to the culture of sports and recreation in the American South, surveying the various activities in which southerners engage in their nonwork hours, as well as attitudes surrounding those activities. Seventy-four thematic essays explore activities from the familiar (porch sitting and airs) to the essential (football and stock car racing) to the unusual (pool checkers and a sport called "fireballing"). In seventy-seven topical entries, contributors profile major sites associated with recreational activities (such as Dollywood, drive-ins, and the Appalachian Trail) and prominent sports figures (including Althea Gibson, Michael Joran, Mia Hamm, and Hank Aaron). Taken together, the entries provide an engaging look a the ways southerners relax, pass time, celebrate, let loose, and have fun. Harvey H. Jackson III is Professor and Eminent Scholar in History at Jacksonville State University and is author, coauthor, or coeditor of nine books on various topics in southern history. Charles Reagan Wilson is Kelly Gene Cook Sr. Chair in History and Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.