Ray Wittenberg

Tell about the South. What's it like there? What do they do there? Why do they live there? Why do they live at all?

— William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom

The American South is a geographical entity, a historical fact, a place in the imagination, and the homeland of an array of Americans who consider themselves southerners. The region is often shrouded in romance and myth, but its realities are as intriguing, as intricate, as its legends.