This book provides a concise introduction to the history and culture of the American South. Charles Reagan Wilson explores Southern history alongside the creative achievements that have come out of the region, producing a portrait of a complex American place. This is a deftly woven history of the region, spanning from when indigenous southerners shaped the region to when Black activists orchestrated the removal of Confederate monuments from city centers. Charles Reagan Wilson has captured the driving foundational tensions of regionalism - whiteness and otherness, urbanity and rurality, religiosity and secularism - that have long animated our national consciousness. The South remains a mirror and creation of the nation, and Wilson's portrait of America's reflection over time is a precise invitation to look anew at who we have been, who we are, and who we might want to be in a more unified future.