Georgia Odyssey
Title Details
Pages: 200
Trim size: 5.500in x 8.000in
Formats
Paperback
Pub Date: 05/25/2008
ISBN: 9-780-8203-3050-1
List Price: $22.95
Subsidies and Partnerships
Published in association with Georgia Humanities
Related Subjects
HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
Other Links of Interest
• Learn more about Georgia history at the New Georgia Encyclopedia
Georgia Odyssey
Skip to
- Description
- Reviews
Georgia Odyssey is a lively survey of the state’s history, from its beginnings as a European colony to its current standing as an international business mecca, from the self-imposed isolation of its Jim Crow era to its role as host of the centennial Olympic Games and beyond, from its long reign as the linchpin state of the Democratic Solid South to its current dominance by the Republican Party. This new edition incorporates current trends that have placed Georgia among the country’s most dynamic and attractive states, fueled the growth of its Hispanic and Asian American populations, and otherwise dramatically altered its demographic, economic, social, and cultural appearance and persona.
“The constantly shifting cultural landscape of contemporary Georgia,” writes James C. Cobb, “presents a jumbled panorama of anachronism, contradiction, contrast, and peculiarity.” A Georgia native, Cobb delights in debunking familiar myths about his state as he brings its past to life and makes it relevant to today. Not all of that past is pleasant to recall, Cobb notes. Moreover, not all of today’s Georgians are as unequivocal as the tobacco farmer who informed a visiting journalist in 1938 that “we Georgians are Georgian as hell.” That said, a great many Georgians, both natives and new arrivals, care deeply about the state’s identity and consider it integral to their own. Georgia Odyssey is the ideal introduction to our past and a unique and often provocative look at the interaction of that past with our present and future.
An excellent window through which to take honest measure of the state.
—Times Literary Supplement
One of the most refreshing works on the state to appear in years. . . . Cobb writes in a style that is lively and personal. Georgia Odyssey is one of those rare works that effectively bridge the unnecessarily wide and often artificial gap between professional scholars and an informed public.
—Georgia Historical Quarterly
Cobb’s book proves that state histories do not have to be the stuff of graduate student nightmares. Clear, fast-paced, and thoroughly engaging, it is the sort of work that reminds readers of the narrative power of well-written history.
—Florida Historical Quarterly
Cobb is eminently qualified to lead the reader on an odyssey through the state’s history. This book is a delight to read. Throughout, Cobb is able to sustain a downhome, familiar style that seems to fit the subject perfectly.
—Journal of Southwest Georgia History
The reader will put the book down with a deeper understanding of Georgia in all its contradictions. . . . Georgia Odyssey is no dry academic history . . . instead it's an engagingly written volume that sometimes reads more like an irreverent conversation than words on paper.
—Athens Banner-Herald
If you want to know what makes the South tick, you might well look to James Cobb for insight.
—John Egerton
