The Old South is a collection of primary documents and previously published essays introducing students to recent themes found in scholarship on the social and cultural history of the Old South. The documents are drawn directly from the essays not only to vividly illustrate the events, but also to show students how historians construct arguments based on archival evidence. Smith introduces the collection with a detailed essay, and provides study questions, suggestions for further reading, a map, and a chronology of significant events creating a highly useful student-friendly reader.

Mark M. Smith is Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He previously taught at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. He is the author of Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (1997) and Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum American South (1998).