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The Mississippi Encyclopedia ed. by Ted Ownby et al.

2018; Southern Historical Association; Volume: 84; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/soh.2018.0186

2325-6893

Carroll Van West,

Race, History, and American Society

Reviewed by: The Mississippi Encyclopedia ed. by Ted Ownby et al. Carroll Van West The Mississippi Encyclopedia. Edited by Ted Ownby, Charles Reagan Wilson, Ann J. Abadie, Odie Lindsey, and James G. Thomas Jr. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. Pp. viii, 1451. $70.00, ISBN 978-1-62846-692-8.) Almost thirty years ago, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi launched a movement in the study of the South with the publication of Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill, 1989), a reference book edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris that influenced multiple states to develop and publish their own encyclopedias over the next decade and a half. The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture was scholarly and reflective, stubbornly insisting that while southern history may have its warts, there could be little doubt that southern culture had profoundly shaped the nation's cultural expressions. The editors grounded that book and the volumes in a subsequent new edition in sound scholarship, pithy but telling entries, and diverse perspectives from scholars across various disciplines. The Mississippi Encyclopedia is also edited by a team of scholars at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, with more than 600 authors contributing some 1,500 entries. It is a reflection of its predecessor but also a step forward in both approach and chronological depth. Organized alphabetically, not thematically, the book mixes Mississippi's past into one grand collage that leads readers to consider intersections between deeper and more contemporary pasts. One set of entries, for example, moves from Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis Ray "Oil Can" Boyd, to mid-twentieth-century segregationist, author, and judge Thomas Pickens Brady, to influential yet neglected rock musician Delaney Alvin Bramlett, and to the fourth and sixth Mississippi governor Gerard Chittocque Brandon. Politics, segregation, Stax Records, race, and the World Series are discussed within the space of three pages, a happenstance caused by the alphabet that forces readers to step outside their specialist comfort zones, if only for a moment. [End Page 728] The editors certainly emphasize that Mississippi has more than its fair share of writers and musicians. William Faulkner and Elvis Presley are only the beginning; hundreds of entries cover music and literature. But with entries such as "Grant, Ulysses S., in Mississippi" and "Reagan, Ronald, in Mississippi," the editors also note when national leaders have intersected with state events. The injection of the natural world into the encyclopedia is another strength and is perhaps the best indication that the volume's title actually means that the book is about everything that is Mississippi. Entries like those on ferns, kudzu, reptiles, and soils set the environmental contexts for much of what makes the state distinctive: its land, wildlife, coastline, and forests. This sense of place carries into the built environment, but there are more structures of note than the Greek Revival monuments for which the state is justly famous. There are entries on juke joints, levee camps, lighthouses, religious roadside art, and Rosenwald schools. Each county merits an entry, although these tend to be uneven; some county histories are expansive in both chronology and themes, while others are brief, with more emphasis on one century or another. Mississippi, like all southern states, needs updated work on local history. One of the volume's greatest merits is how it addresses topics that were once ignored in histories of southern states. Its approach to slavery, for instance, is exemplary. The editors eschew a single, long thematic entry in favor of multiple essays on slave codes, slave communities, slave patrols, slave revolts, slave trade, arguments for slavery, Native American slaves, runaway slaves, and slavery's impact on Mississippi agriculture, religion, and settlement. Elementary and high school educators often question how to best address slavery—a central topic of a southern state's history—and this volume provides multiple avenues for worthwhile class discussions. Condensing so much of a state into a single volume is impossible. Specialists may question why the volume includes present-day topics such as "Fat Possum Records" instead of their favorite nineteenth-century subject. But that mix of present and past is the whole point of the collection...