barely mentions slavery and is more or less racist in its characterization of blacks. It neglects women, except as totemic objects of Southern mythology. It diminishes the existence of class conflict in the Old South and insists upon its relative impotence after the [Civil] War. It misunderstands the nature of aristocracy. It overstresses both the unity and the continuity of Southern history. It has very little grasp of political history and has no coherent explanation for the Civil War. It is provincial in its emphasis upon white males and upon . . . Piedmont . . . as the archetypal South. It exaggerates the guilt of Southerners over slavery. It shows little understanding of the formal ideas of generations of Southern intellectuals. Its view of Reconstruction is primitive. It overestimates the static quality of agricultural society.
The reader must ask, then, if O'Brien and other critics are right, and there are so many blatant flaws in Cash's book, why has it had such an impact? Why is it necessary to mount such an assault on a work which is so seriously flawed? Should it not collapse of the weight of its own errors? The answer is that Cash's work is not a work of reason and research, but rather is a work of passion. O'Brien recognizes this fact in his conclusion, writing that Cash has a love/hate relationship with the South. He writes that Cash appeals, ironically, to young intellectual Southerners who are willing to overlook the intellectual flaws in Cash's work: "He has spoken to the loneliness of those many who have grown up asserting themselves in the face of an unsympathetic society, obliged to surmount an anti-intellectual religious tradition of great and emotional power."
O'Brien is correct in asserting that Cash essentially offers little realistic hope for the South, but that is not a valid criticism. After all, there may be no hope for the South. O'Brien is more effecti
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