A literary feud is playing out on the Renegade South blog between the authors of a new book about a Mississippi county that seceded from the Confederacy — John Stauffer of Harvard and Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post — and the author of a 2000 book on the same subject, Victoria Bynum of Texas State University at San Marcos. According to a New York Times article about the dispute, Ms. Bynum’s publisher, the University of North Carolina Press, sold the book’s film rights to Universal Pictures, and a filmmaker’s screenplay served as the inspiration for the new book, which the Times described as “somewhat sexier” than the original.
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I suggest that Chronicle readers watch Sally Jenkins’ interview with Jon Stewart on the July 23rd Daily Show to understand how little she knows about southern history and her attitude toward those who truly labor in the field. As I understand it, Stauffer is an English Prof. and not a historian. This controversy is not so much about “competing books” as it is about scholarly integrity.