Prometheus 6

Stephen L. Carter reviews Rhett Butler's People, and I'm not goiing to buy it (look Ma, no Amazon link!). But the review starts with an interesting discussion of Gone With The Wind, its sequels and reconceptualizations. Took a while for him to mention the actual book he's reviewiing. That's not a complaint.

“Gone With the Wind” was published in 1936, and despite heroic efforts over the last seven decades to transform it into something else, the novel stands as an apologia for the Old South — the South of gallant white plantation owners and darkies too foolish for anything but slavery, a civilization ruined by a vengeful North that subsequently flooded that idyllic world with rapacious Union soldiers, greedy carpetbaggers and the despotic power of the Freedmen’s Bureau. That Mitchell was able to defend this vision in a novel of such power, beauty and depth is a tribute to her literary genius. But the vision is no less terrifying for having been brilliantly presented.