“The long civil rights movement” is a phrase that has gained currency in the last few years. Coined by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall in her presidential address to the Organization of American Historians in 2004, it reminds historians that the American civil rights movement did not begin with the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling, and that it did it not end with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It also suggests something else: that there could not be a long civil rights movement without an equally long countermovement.

With this in mind, Joseph Crespino's new book explores the evolving world of segregation in Mississippi. Those familiar with the appalling history of the Ku Klux Klan and its slightly more savory ally, the Citizens' Council, know part of the story. But Crespino argues that more effective resistance to the civil rights crusade was offered by “practical segregationists” – men and women from Mississippi's urban and suburban middle class, who saw violence as futile and some concessions to federal law as necessary. In addition, many of these people, and especially those who were members of conservative churches, viewed integration as just one of a host of afflictions that threatened not just Mississippi, but the entire nation. Liberal theologians and politicians, they believed, imperiled the very foundations of American society.

In the end, Mississippi conservatives learned to resist integration with such race-neutral proposals as “freedom of choice” plans, they fought liberalism by constructing Christian academies, and they successfully linked themselves to the Republican counterrevolution that swept the United States in the 1980s. They were not always successful. But over the course of a decade or two they helped effect a transformation in Mississippi's reputation. Once derided as a disgrace to American ideals, Mississippi moved into the increasingly conservative American mainstream. For Republicans and Democrats, it came to be seen as a critical state, especially in American presidential politics.

In Search of Another Country is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the Republican counterrevolution in the American South. It is well researched and deftly argued. Although the layman might not appreciate its careful attention to detail, the specialist will. Indeed, it is a book that deserves a place on the shelf of every research library.

(For more on Crespino's work, and the field of studies looking at the history of the South, see the JAS website for Richard King's review essay.)