Alistair Cooke and Other Southerners

There was a large, liberal, miseducated audience waiting for Alistair Cooke. It wasn't just that he was a delightful English-bred type who's been in the public eye for many years; it wasn't just the fact that he'd broadcast his version of American history to a national TV audience for weeks before he polished it up and published it as Alistair Cooke's America. No, his book swept the country (that is, if the country is buyers of $15 books, all the book clubs in sight, and the critics) because for a hundred years a liberal audience had been miseducated to welcome Alistair Cooke's America, or at least to welcome its history of race relations, which is what I shall deal with here.