Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World by James L. Peacock

Abstract

354 Mississippi Quarterly of Boone’s humanity. The result is a book that occasionally mischaracterizes even as it illuminates important aspects of an iconic American and his world. Goucher College MATTHEW RAINBOW HALE Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World, by James L. Peacock. The New Southern Studies Series. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007. 311 pp. $26.95 cloth. “WE WILL NEVER NAIL THE SOUTH DOWN LIKE A BUTTERFLY COLLECTED, but must pursue it as a butterfly in flight—so much the better, for the thing is alive!” This sentence from James Peacock’s GroundedGlobalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World illuminates one of the book’s most important themes: identity, grounded within a specific locale, changes, grows, and transforms depending upon the forces with which it interacts.GroundedGlobalismis an examination of the transformation of Southern identity as the region and its peoples interact with the forces of globalization. In contrast to C. Vann Woodward’s earlier characterization of the South as “burdened” by its past, Peacock’s study instead demonstrates how an identity that was shaped within a national context—in opposition to the North—is now being reformed within a global context. Peacock argues that this paradigm shift results in possibilities for transcendence of dualism and oppositionality for the US South; he also cites individuals and groups who have been able to maintain a regional identity within a global framework. Grounded Globalism cycles around a seven-step model of cultural change. The model begins with regional identity; in the next step, regional identity opposes national identity, leading to rebellion, step three. Following rebellion is defeat; resentment and oppression constitute step five. The final two steps are the transmutation by global identity and the grounding of that global identity within a regional identity. Peacock’s book outlines and references the first five steps, but focuses on the last two. The model is not specific to the US South, but Peacock argues that the South has something particular to offer to help us understand the current climate of globalization. 355 Book Reviews Peacock notes the importance of Southern history, including slavery and segregation, in the creation of identity, but he makes clear that the study’s focus is on space rather than on race. The concept of space is crucial to his thesis and what makes it distinctive. Many scholars think of globalization as freeing peoples from the restraints of particular places, but Peacock argues that only when globalism is “grounded” within regions does it allow for useful interactions between people and organizations. Though he cites contemporary literary criticism that examines “postsouthernness,” discussing the works of Martyn Bone and Scott Romine, he ultimately rejects any reading that claims the South becomes illusory when we deconstruct the idea of place: “That notion essentializes the South, as though the region disappears when one loses some older construction of it. A more productive strategy is to acknowledge the forces constructing place, as in the instance of the South, in order to understand and shape them” (227). For Peacock, place is not a fixed thing, but rather a process that changes as forces interact with it. One of the more appealing qualities of GroundedGlobalismis the vast number of “forces” examined in the text. Subjects as varied and seemingly unrelated as Alan Jackson’s song “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” Martin Luther King, Jr.’s admiration of Ghandi, and a Pakistani effigy-burning of Colonel Sanders are connected and cogently analyzed in terms of the larger thesis. Particularly compelling are Peacock’s investigations of the effect of globalization on religion and politics in the South. Religion is presented in the chapter “Meaning: Religion in the Global South” as both regionally diverse and as a space of intellectualism. Southerners have not only reached out to the world through mission work but have also forged international connections with followers of similar faiths regardless of national background. This depiction can be contrasted with stereotypical portrayals of evangelical fundamentalist Southern religion. Peacock’s most complex analysis comes in the chapter “Politics: Is Globalism Liberal? Is a Local Focus Conservative?” the title of which suggests commonly held ideas about liberalism and conservatism in...