In the informal, engaging essays brought together in ONE SOUTH, John Shelton Reed focuses on the South's strong regional identity and on the persistence, well into the last decades of the twentieth century, of Southern cultural distinctiveness. Reed argues that Southerners are similar in much the same way that members of an ethnic group are similar. He discusses the South's shared cultural values, ranging from serious examinations of Southern violence and regional identity to considerations of Southern humor, country music, and the emergence of a new Southern middle class.