Granted that most cultural mythologies embody truths or would-be truths, studies of the South nevertheless reveal it to be a more complex, more fluid, more open society than apologists might think, something worth considering as we go forward. The resounding influence of Gone with the Wind, a story about a glorious plantation society under siege during and after the Civil War, has perhaps left us with a simplistic portrait of what was in reality a patchwork quilt of cultural complexity and ingenuity. Self-identified Southerners might appreciate what Professor Edward Ayers of the University of Richmond writes about Southern identity: Southern history bespeaks a place that is more complicated than the stories we tell about it.