Book excerpt: "The South has occupied a peculiar and tragic status in American history -- it is the only section that has had to struggle with a great all-encompassing social evil. Mr. Eaton's study shows that this evil, slavery, was not often the physically cruel institution which the abolitionists portrayed -- its evil was of the mind and spirit. It was, however, only one of the powerful forces which changed the South from the most liberal to the most conservative region of the nation. In dealing with the decades leading up to the Civil War, Mr. Eaton calls attention to neglected phases of Southern civilization -- to the growth of city life, the rise of the business class, the effects of erosion and exhaustion of the soils, and the problems of social justice. Pointing up the significance of the middle class in Southern life, he finds, instead of the monolithic South of legend, a society of much variety and of subtle complexity. In The Growth of Southern Civilization the author has brought the quality of realism to the history of the South by basing his study upon a wide range of sources. He presents the drama of ordinary people struggling with the problems of Southern life -- the yeomen and mechanics, the aristocratic planters, the poor whites, the Negroes as human beings, reformers, businessmen, schoolteachers, all in the last analysis more important than the politicians and military leaders. Above all, Mr. Eaton portrays clearly and critically the psychology that underlay the secession movement and the War for Southern Independence."--Jacket.