Download or read book The End of Southern Exceptionalism written by Byron E Shafer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until now, the critical shift in Southern political allegiance from Democratic to Republican has been explained, by scholars and journalists, as a white backlash to the civil rights revolution. In this myth-shattering book, Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston refute that view, one stretching all the way back to V. O. Key in his classic book Southern Politics. The true story is instead one of dramatic class reversal, beginning in the 1950s and pulling everything else in its wake.