A British historian of the American South examines the forces of contingency and the stimulus of teaching that led him to become a historian of the United States and, in particular, the American South. Belonging to a generation of British historians who aimed to make their work indistinguishable from their American counterparts, he has been forced to confront the argument that his outsider status has indeed made a difference to the way he considers a region that has prided itself on its own sense of history. He argues that he has perhaps been able to offer some insights that challenge comfortable "celebratory" notions of the region's recent past. (Contains 1 note.)