Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Letters from the South, Written During an Excursion in the Summer of 1816 by James Kirke Paulding

This book recounts James Kirke Paulding's trip through Virginia in 1816. It has both his observations of the area and its people and his reflections on the origins and practices of the region. There are quite a few tangents. The book is very interested in smoothing over regional differences--not to say that they don't exist, but to contend that they don't matter in comparison to the need of greater national unity: Paulding contends that if Americans only really understood each other, they wouldn't disagree and push for disunion.

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