"I was disappointed in this nonfiction study of a town and county in Mississippi in the mid-1930s. I wanted to read it after reading about it in Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. I realize now she referenced it primarily because its authors� use of the term “caste� reinforced her own thesis about caste and race in the US. It’s not that it’s a bad book, just reflective of sociological research at that time.
The section on white “caste� is much longer and more detailed than the section on black caste. This may have been due to access or other factors but I would have liked an explanation. The methodology was interesting since two couples, one black and one white, moved to the town/county and lived there in order to gather their data. Again I would have liked a prologue or afterword to discuss how exactly they went about their work. They outline how much of it was interviews and newspaper research, but never said if they openly discussed their purpose for being there with those they interviewed, for example.
Mainly they spent their time dividing the community up into different classes, in both white and black castes. With that established, they then looked at how the different classes interacted within their own caste and how/if there was much movement from one class to another within each caste. Then of course how different classes in each caste interacted with the various classes of the other.
This was much more extensively laid out in the white community than in the black, perhaps because the black community didn’t have the economic ability to stratify as much.
I didn’t really learn much of anything new and it was written in an academic style, although with little actual academese. Not really recommended."

"Nicola thought it was ridiculous that I had read Mansfield Park and Emma, but not Pride and Prejudice. Now I have. After watching 2 film adaptations with Nicola several times each, there weren't a lot of surprises here."