Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State PDF Book Free Download
This is not the book I was supposed to write. Nor is it the book I
set out to write. As it turned out, it is the book I wanted to write.
The plan was for me to produce a short, popular, illustrated history
of Alabama. That was what I was asked to do. Thinking it an
interesting idea, I agreed. But in the months that followed the project
began to take on a life of its own. Soon I realized that I was
using this opportunity to sort out some things, and say some things,
that I have wanted to sort out and say for years. The result, therefore,
is not so much a history as a commentary, an extended essay on
events and attitudes that I think made and make Alabama what it is
today.
Somewhere in the midst of the research and writing, I realized
that I was approaching my subject much like John Gunther approached
his. Gunther, for those who do not remember, was the author
of a number of “Inside” books that were popular in the 1930s
and 1940s. Noted for his willingness to meet his subject on its own
ground, Gunther traveled the land, studied history and institutions,
watched how things worked—and how they didn’t. Gunther got
personal with his topic, then got personal with his readers. His casual,
conversational style made folks comfortable, which allowed him to
lure them into darker corners where otherwise they might not have
gone, places where they confronted situations some of them would
rather have avoided.
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