As America’s most self-conscious section, the South has
exercised an important and often decisive influence on U.S.
foreign relations, but the extent of this influence has been
largely unexplored by historians. In this groundbreaking study,
Joseph A. Fry provides a comprehensive overview of the South’s
role in U.S. international involvement from 1789 to 1973,
revealing the enormous impact of southern pressure on broader
national interests. In a gracefully written and engaging
narrative, Fry chronicles the South’s numerous foreign policy
opinions over time, including its opposition to closer relations
with Great Britain and war with France in the 1790s, its
leadership in the War of 1812, its flawed diplomatic attempts
during the years of the Confederacy, and its fifty-year protest
against the increasingly assertive Republican-dominated
political agenda following the Civil War. With the election of
Woodrow Wilson, Fry shows, the South reversed its tendency
toward isolationism and consistently supported Wilson’s