Alabama Getaway

A compelling view of Alabama’s challenges, and possibly a blueprint for meeting them. Informed readers of politics and Southern culture will be engrossed, and some likely infuriated.

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American studies at its best, a penetrating reflection on why this former seat of the Confederacy exists in the national imaginary as both a political, economic, and cultural backwater and a site where the Goliath of Jim Crow was slain by humble descendants of slaves. Alabama Getaway is a rich and surprising journey to which you’ll want to return.

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Along with masterworks such as 1934’s Stars Fell on Alabama, this book stands in the first rank of indispensable books about the ‘strange country’ that calls itself the Heart of Dixie. No student of Alabamiana can afford to be without Alabama Getaway. For close to two centuries now, historians, journalists, novelists, and poets have wrestled with the maddening paradoxes that Tullos confronts with measured authority. . . . He deepens our understanding of Alabama even while convincing us there is little reason for optimism about its governance. Yet he gives due credit for the civil rights gains that represent Alabama’s greatest achievement. Bravo! This is a masterful book about a wounded, neurotic, maddening, and—for those of us born to its soil—an enduringly lovable place.

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Residents of any state can ask a variation of the question posed by Tullos: ‘What makes Alabama Alabama?’ Historians, sociologists, journalists and others grapple with such questions regularly. Rarely, however, has any author tackled the question as effectively as has Tullos . . . Tullos’ book is so insightful because it transcends the obvious targets. Because Tullos grew up in Alabama, he can empathize even as he criticizes those who believe the state is unfairly maligned.

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Alabama Getaway resists easy categorization. Part Menckenesque journalism, part history, part acerbic social commentary, it veers between the catch phrases of the interdisciplinary seminar and more conventional political analysis. . . . Tullos is at his best when examining the failure of Alabamians—including Condoleezza Rice—to deal honestly with their own history.

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Borrowing his title from the Grateful Dead, Tullos treads the line between historical narrative and political treatise, offering both an explanation of how the state got into such poor shape and suggestions for how it can improve. His tendency for well-crafted satirical phrases gives this pointed narrative of lost opportunities and missteps a comedic tone as he reminds the reader of how far Alabama has come, yet how far it still has to go. . . .An Important book that contributes to both Alabama’s history and the contemporary political debates over its future.

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Tullos’s greatest contribution to historians is in his theoretical discussion of the political imaginary. His work reiterates the old political lesson that perception is reality and those who dictate perception create that reality.

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Tullos is a skillful writer, deserving of the best compliments a reader can offer. . . . this is a book that should be read by any Alabamian willing to think beyond "Sez you," and willing to consider the promise of an Alabama capable of breaking with its past.