We see the antebellum period both from the perspective of those who experienced it first-hand, such as Thomas Jefferson and Harriet Jacobs, as well as from authors who imagined the era later, including William Styron and Sherley Anne Williams. Likewise, we see the Civil War through eyewitness accounts such as Sarah Morgan's, later writers' analyses such as W.E.B. Du Bois's, and war-inspired fiction such as Margaret Mitchell's. Classic authors of the 1920s and '30s Southern Renaissance are followed by figures including Martin Luther King, Jr., George Garrett, and Peter Taylor, whose works capture the dramatic years of the Civil Rights movement. The struggles, defeats, and triumphs chronicled in The Oxford Book of the American South speak not just to the South, but to all of the American experience.