Description
Celebrated as the house of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is usually a place of conflict and tragedy–the website of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 assassination–and a city in most cases marginalized by scholars and underestimated by its own residents. The use of this iconic southern city as a case study, Wanda Rushing explores the significance of place in a globalizing age.
Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part as a result of global processes, not regardless of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories concerning the history and global have an effect on of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a website of cultural creativity and global industry–a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture around the globe.