White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Aaron Williamson
Audiobook
13 hr 48 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More
Want a 1 hr 22 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

During the civil rights era, Atlanta thought of itself as "The City Too Busy to Hate," a rare place in the South where the races lived and thrived together. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, so many whites fled the city for the suburbs that Atlanta earned a new nickname: "The City Too Busy Moving to Hate." In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms. Challenging the conventional wisdom that white flight meant nothing more than a literal movement of whites to the suburbs, this book argues that it represented a more important transformation in the political ideology of those involved. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, Kruse demonstrates that traditional elements of modern conservatism, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent important transformations during the postwar struggle over segregation.

About the author

Kevin M. Kruse is professor of history at Princeton University.

Aaron Williamson has carried a lifelong love of storytelling into his audiobook narration career. Specializing in nonfiction works, he has a deep appreciation for the long hours of preparation and research an author invests in a finished book.

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.