The title of this book confirms that it starts, not with the precursors to the city of Knoxville or its founding, but in the “New South” era, specifically 1940. Wheeler is not shy about his conclusions about the eras that his chapters cover. Chapter Two, which starts at 1940 is entitled, “Lost Confidence and the Culture of Ugliness.” And if that is not negative enough, Chapter Three bears the title, “The Wheels Come Off the Wagon: Knoxville in the 1950s.” The last three chapters take a more optimistic tack as Wheeler feels the city has become more self-assured. This edition includes a new preface and a new chapter that covers the period from the death of Cas Walker in 1998 to the end of the first administration of Knoxville’s first female mayor, Madeline Rogero in 2019. The author, William Bruce Wheeler, is professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee and is currently at work on the 6th edition of his book, Discovering the American Past.
Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, a 2020 third edition of a 1983 release with a 2005 second edition. 289 pages with an index, notes, maps, illustrations, and photographs. Trade paperback.