If you’re from the South, live there, have visited or even just skim headlines about the region, you probably have an opinion on this distinct area of the United States. In her new book, Princeton University African American studies professor IMANI PERRY argues understanding the complicated history and character of the South as the nation’s heartland is key to understanding America. In South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, she explores the varied land and much of its painful history as she searches for her enslaved ancestors. From Maryland to Texas, to her birthplace of Birmingham, Perry narrates her travels, the memories visited, and answers questions about how life in the South has shaped the culture of a nation.

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Time Magazine, I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor. What I Found Was More Questions –  Read an excerpt from Imani Perry’s new book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

New York Times, orleans-slavery.html">New Orleans Is a Place Where There Is Violence in the Sweetness, Horror in the Beauty – “This is, as Perry puts it, “not a preservation. This is intervention.” For too long, the South has been scapegoated and reduced to a backward land on the other side of some translucent, but impenetrable, barrier.”