Whistling Dixie: Ronald Reagan, the White South, and the Transformation of the Republican Party

Jonathan Bartho’s Whistling Dixie explores the interdependent political relationship between Ronald Reagan and the white conservative South, a relationship that had a profound impact on Reagan’s own career, on the political landscape of the South and the entire United States, and on the identity of the modern Republican Party. Millions of southerners were attracted to the GOP by Reagan’s anti-statist ideology and their affection for the man himself—an affection that had been built over deca...