"Lost Revolutions explores a time of startling turbulence and change in the South, years that have often been dismissed as placid and dull. In the wake of World War II, southerners anticipated a peaceful and prosperous future, but as Pete Daniel demonstrates, the road into the 1950s took some unexpected turns. The South that emerged in the twenty years after the war grew out of displacement, conflict, and creativity - not tranquility.". "Daniel chronicles the myriad forces that turned the world southerners had known upside down in the postwar period. In chapters that explore such subjects as the civil rights movement, segregation, and school integration; the breakdown of traditional agriculture and the ensuing rural-urban migration; gay and lesbian life; and the emergence of rock 'n' roll music and stock car racing, as well as the triumph of working-class culture, he reveals that the 1950s South was a place with the potential for revolutionary change.". "In the end, however, the progressive forces for change were largely diverted and the chance for significant transformation squandered. Lost opportunities littered the southern landscape in the years between the end of World War II and the Freedom Summer of 1964, Daniel says."--BOOK JACKET.