JOHN SHELTON REED is founding coeditor of the journal Southern Cultures. He is the Mark W. Clark Visiting Professor History at the Citadel, and William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is coauthor, with Dale Volberg Reed, of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South.

Drawing on television, film, and country music, Reed creates a typology of white southerners that includes the hero, the villain, the fool, and the victim. In doing so, he provides a strong argument for the roles of the media, labeling theory, and intergroup relations in the creation and maintenance of stereotypes . . . Reed's book is highly readable and entertaining, but with sociological substance as well.