Dixie Looks Abroad

US: LSU Press, 2002. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. As America's most self-conscious section, the South has exercised an import ant and often decisive influence on U.S. foreign relations, but the extent of this influence has been largely unexplored by historians. In this ground breaking study, Joseph A. Fry provides a comprehensive overview of the Sout h's role in U.S. international involvement from 1789 to 1973, revealing the enormous impact of southern pressure on broader national interests. In a gracefully written and engaging narrative, Fry chronicles the South's numerous foreign policy opinions over time, including its opposition to clo ser relations with Great Britain and war with France in the 1790s, its lead ership in the War of 1812, its flawed diplomatic attempts during the years of the Confederacy, and its fifty-year protest against the increasingly ass ertive Republican-dominated political agenda following the Civil War. With the election of Woodrow Wilson, Fry shows, the South reversed its tendency toward isolationism and consistently supported Wilson's activist foreign po licies. The South sustained this interventionist mind-set into the 1970s, a rdently supporting cold war containment policy. Fry is careful to note that southerners seldom presented a completely united front on foreign affairs. Yet even while disagreeing among themselves, he argues, they consistently viewed the world through a distinctly southern lens and acted on a variety of perceived common interests, including a dedication to honor and patriotism, a det.