I find Neoconfederate revisionism quite fascinating. As a student of culture, it is always interesting to see a group's process of mythologizing their own history. The Cult of the Lost Cause constructed an alternate reality for Southerners through a relentless campaign of propaganda designed to control the debate over the war. By hollering the loudest and longest, Confederates and now their Neoconfederate offspring have in effect done something unusual: they are a rare example of the losers writing the history. But why all the fuss? After all, the South has become the dominant region of the United States. The South receives a disproportionate share of redistributed taxpayer dollars, the solid "red state" voting bloc of the South drives our politics, country music is a major national radio format, the Left Behind series is the largest selling fictional series ever written, and NASCAR is the largest spectator sport in the United States. It took a while, but the South finally won. Sure, you might have to write off Virginia north of the Rappahannock to new invading Yankee hordes, but all in all a pretty good consolation prize for a failed insurrection. One would think the Neoconfederates would quit while they're ahead. ________________________________ Dr. David S. Hardin Assistant Professor of Geography Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences Longwood University Farmville, Virginia 23909 Phone: (434) 395-2581 e-mail: [log in to unmask] ******************** "For as Geography without History seemeth a carkasse without motion, so History without Geography wandreth as a Vagrant without a certaine habitation." John Smith, 1627