Ted Cruz (R-TX) certainly knows that he’s an exceptional southerner.
My latest post is an article for Salon that explains why the American South continues to be exceptional in its own unique way.
The Civil War ended in 1865. Before the war, it was common parlance in America to speak of two regions: the “North” and the “South,” which were divided, above all else, over the issue of slavery. After the war, however, the idea of the “North” gradually disappeared from American culture, but “The South” as a regional, cultural and ideological construction has lived on.