THE FIRST INSTALLMENT of Dr. Clyde N. Wilson’s SOUTHERN READER’S GUIDES distills more than a half century of scholarship into identifying and describing 50 essential books on the topic of the “Old South”— that is, the colonial and antebellum periods of Southern History.Dr. Wilson, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of History of the University of South Carolina, was editor of the highly-praised Papers of John C. Calhoun and is the author or editor of more than 20 other books, and over 700 articles, essays, and reviews in a variety of books and journals, scholarly and popular. He is considered by many to be the greatest living historian of the South. If you want to understand the Old South as she understood herself, there is no greater guide than Dr. Wilson.