Dixie Looks Abroad: The South and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1789-1973. By JOSEPH A. FRY. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. xiv, 334 pp. $39.95.
ALTHOUGH historians have often recognized regional differences in Americans' views about foreign policy, Joseph A. Fry is the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of how the South's distinctive worldview affected American foreign relations from the founding of the republic through the Vietnam War. Drawing on an extensive secondary literature in southern and diplomatic history, Fry ably demonstrates that the South's approach to foreign policy-rooted in an obsession with economic independence and the continuous expansion …