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11.09.02 Wilson, Clyde N., editor, Chronicles of the South, Volume 1: Garden of the Beaux Arts, Volume 2: In Justice to so Fine a Country, published in 2011

Notes Concerning the Editor

Dr. Clyde N. Wilson (1941-___), editor, known as America’s greatest authority on John C. Calhoun, is now retired from his long career in the History Department of the University of South Carolina.  Presently, the Director of Historical Review for The Society of Independent Southern Historians, he remains very active in the advocacy of truthful Southern history.  Wilson’s comprehensive publication of the papers of John C. Calhoun is reviewed at 02.06.15.

Abstract

Volume 1, Garden of the Beaux Arts, a lovely 291-page book, consists of an introduction by editor Wilson followed by 34 articles previously published in “Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture” and conclude with brief biographies of the selected writers: Ward S. Allen, Fr. Alister Anderson, Madison Smartt Bell, M. E. Bradford, Fred Chappell, Katherine Dalton, Donald Davidson, John J. Duncan, Jr., Thomas Fleming, Evetts Haley, Jr., James Everett Kibler, Russell Kirk, Tom Landess, Donald W. Livingston, Grady McWhiney, William Murchison, Walker Percy, William Pratt, Mary Berry Smith, J. O. Tate, Egon Richard Tausch, Ralph de Toledano, Steven Wilkings, Clyde N. Wilson, Mark Royden Winchell, and Aaron D. Wolf. 

The Jacket on this beautifully published hardback book (a keepsake) begins: “Who would have thought that some of the best writing on the South over the last quarter-century would be found in the pages of a magazine published in the heart of the Midwest?  Yet, as Clyde N. Wilson, the editor of the papers of John C. Calhoun, points out, ‘Chronicles, almost alone among American journals, has amazingly and refreshingly avoided all the fashionable pseudo-intellectual games and rites of exorcism and treated us Southern people like any other people.  It has honored the simple proposition that Dixie is real, is something worth looking at plainly, has a right to speak for itself, and perhaps even deserves a little appreciation.'”

Volume 2, In Justice to so Fine a Country, a lovely 289-page book, continues the presentation of essays, here hitting a bit harder at emotional issues, such as the War Between the States and Political Reconstruction.  Here Southern political philosophy is more apt to surface.  The 30 articles, all also previously published in Chronicles, are written by Don Anderson, Patrick J. Buchanan, Thomas Fleming, Samuel Francis, George Garrett, Michael Hill, Greg Kaza, Tom Landess, Donald W. Livingston, William Murchison, John Shelton Reed, J. O. Tate, Egon Richard Tausch, Jack Trotter, William J. Watkins, Chilton Williamson, Jr. and Clyde N. Wilson. 

Availability of this Book

You can obtain this book from Chronicles Magazine at the website listed below:

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/chronicles-press/chronicles-of-the-south-edited-by-clyde-n-wilson/ 

The book set is also available as a paperback issue.  Used books can be readily obtained.  We suggest Amazon.com .

HRW