'TKAM' expert Wayne Flynt has written 12 books

Noted historian Wayne Flynt wrote an excellent article about Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and Monroeville for the Summer 2010 issue of Alabama Heritage magazine. For those of you who missed it, I highly recommend that you check it out.

Flynt is arguably the state’s stop historian. Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University, his research focuses on Southern culture, Alabama politics, Southern religion, education reform and poverty, according to Wikipedia.

At the back of the Summer issue of Alabama Heritage, a brief biographical blurb mentioned that Flynt has written 12 books. “Of his twelve books, two discuss Florida politics, three discuss white poverty, and two religion; eight discuss Alabama,” according to the magazine.

A number of years ago, my parents gave me a copy of Flynt’s book, “Alabama: The History of a Deep South State.” First published in 1994 by the University of Alabama Press, this book is a highly detailed, very readable history of the state.

With that said, I was surprised to learn that Flynt had written 11 other books, and I set out earlier this week to come up with a list of his other books. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Alabama in the Twentieth Century (2006)
2. Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie (2005)
3. Dixie’s Forgotten People: The South’s Poor Whites (2004)
4. Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites (2001)
5. Taking Christianity to China: Alabama Missionaries in the Middle Kingdom, 1850-1950 (1997)
6. Ban, Burn and Ignore: Writing and Publishing Books in the South (1989)
7. Mine, Mill and Microchip: A Chronical of Alabama Enterprise (1987)
8. Up Before Daylight: Life Histories from the Alabama Writers’ Project, 1938-1939 (1982)
9. Montgomery: An Illustrated History (1980)
10. Cracker Messiah: Governor Sidney J. Catts of Florida (1977)
11. Duncan Upshaw Fletcher: Dixie’s Reluctant Progressive (1971)

Some of the above books are widely available in most large book stores in the state, but some of them are also out of print. How many of these have you had a chance to read? What did you think about them? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.