Civil wars Books

Book SynopsisThis book is an archaeological exploration of a conflict landscape encountered by the volunteers of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. A great deal is known about the Brigades in terms of inter-world war geopolitics, their history and make-up, but less is known about the materiality of the landscapes in which they lived, fought, and died. The Spanish Civil War was a relatively static conflict. As in the First World War, it consisted of entrenched Republican government lines facing similarly entrenched Nationalist (rebel) lines, and these ran north to south across Spain. Fighting was intermittent, so the front line soldiers had to settle in, and make what was an attritional war-scape, a place to live in and survive. This research examines one such war-scape as a place of ‘settlement’, where soldiers lived their daily lives as well as confronting the rigours of war – and these were the volunteers of the International Brigades, both foreign and Spanish, who occupied a section of lines southeast of Zaragoza in Aragón in 1937 and 1938. This research draws, not only on the techniques of landscape archaeology, but also on the writings of international volunteers in Spain – in particular, George Orwell – and it incorporates historical photography as a uniquely analytical, archaeological resource. Trade Review'Salvatore Garfi's book is one of the most compelling accounts by far of a bloody 20th-century conflict. It provides the reader with an all-important historic context to the war, and records the archaeology associated with the trench positions of the International Brigades and Republican forces, where both civilians and combatants bore the brunt of the evils of civil war.' – George Nash (2020): Current World Archaeology #99 -- George Nash * Current World Archaeology #99 *'This is an expert, informative, and often intriguing investigation of a historically recent battle-zone landscape by an archaeologist whose innovatory approach deploys photographs, maps, and historical (and literary) background context to make a powerful contribution to modern conflict archaeology.' – Nicholas Saunders (2020): Military History Matters, Issue 116 -- Nicholas Saunders * Military History Matters *'Garfi’s volume is novel and challenges the traditional presentation of war as a grand narrative, exploring instead the harsh and visceral experience of a war lived on the battlefield.' – Claire Nesbitt (2020): Antiquity Vol. 94 -- Claire Nesbitt * Antiquity 2020 Vol. 94 *'... this volume is an essential contribution to archaeology studies of the Spanish Civil War... Garfi’s application of nonintrusive archaeological survey techniques is praiseworthy, and the multiplicity of the sources used, beyond the fieldwork, makes this volume pertinent for anyone interested in the history of the Spanish conflict of 1936–1939.' – Luis Antonio Ruiz Casero (2020): Historical Archaeology, Volume 54 -- Luis Antonio Ruiz Casero * Historical Archaeology *'In conclusion, Garfi's monograph is a remarkable work detailing a war zone that has been neglected by scholars until now. Although it represents a valid case study on Spain, it also perfectly fits into the wider discipline of combat and landscape archaeology. The variety of sources used by Garfi (including survey data, literary sources, and archival records), supported by rigorous methodology, are points of strength in this book, which makes a valuable contribution to the field of European archaeology. – Antonino Crisa (2022): Landscape Journal Volume 40 #1Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements PART ONE Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Spanish Civil War PART TWO Chapter 3 On Trenches and Field Fortifications Chapter 4 Trench Systems as Settlement Archaeology: The Salient at Mediana de Aragón PART THREE Chapter 5 Experiencing the Mediana Lines Chapter 6 An Archaeology From Photographs: Imaging the Aragón Front Chapter 7 History in ‘Three Dimensions’ Bibliography Appendix Tables

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1828 near Kelso in the Scottish Borders, Wyllie went to sea as an apprentice seaman in 1852 and quickly rose through the ranks. By 1862 he had gained his masters certificate in Liverpool, and there he took command of his first vessel, the Bonita. He sailed for Nassau, then a booming port involved in running contraband through the Union blockade of the Confederate States, at that time fighting in the American Civil War. Sailors from Britain rushed to man these vessels as great fortunes could be made if a successful run was made into a Confederate port. On the return journey, two agents of the State of North Carolina, Thomas Crossan and John White, were travelling to Britain on the orders of Governor Zebulon Vance to purchase ships to run the blockade. This set Wyllie's career as a blockade runner on course. White and Crossan arranged the purchase of the Clyde-built paddle steamer Lord Clyde and, just five months after docking in Liverpool as commander of the Bonita, Wyllie took command of the Lord Clyde, renamed the Ad-Vance. He was aboard from the start of the vessel's new career until her capture in September 1864. Two more commands of blockade runners followed; he was captured again and then evaded the American authorities through an ingenious, and at sometimes unbelievable, escape to Scotland. After the war Wyllie continued at sea for another two years before returning to Scotland to settle as a farmer. Unlike some of those who ran the blockade, Wyllie appears not to have come back a wealthy man. For over 30 years he gave numerous popular lectures of his time at sea in aid of local charities and was known locally as 'Captain Wyllie'. The role that Wyllie played during the Civil War is explored in depth and reveals that he was a constant face, and force, in the crew of the steamer with his actions and abilities being greatly appreciated by both crew and owners alike. The most comprehensive history of the Ad-Vance is provided, from the day she left Glasgow until her capture off the Carolina coast. Many fascinating contemporary passenger diaries, personal recollections from crew, letters and telegrams between Wyllie and Governor Vance, official records of the war and newspaper reports are included. In association with Glasgow Museums.

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Book SynopsisWith a foreword by Jon Snow. In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to com--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrilenos fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford - is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.

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Book SynopsisDaughters of Israel, Daughters of the South: Southern Jewish Women and Identity in the Antebellum and Civil War South examines southern Jewish womanhood during the Antebellum and Civil War Eras. This study finds that in the Protestant South southern Jewish women created and maintained unique American Jewish identities through their efforts in education, writing, religious observance, paid and unpaid labour, and relationships with whites and African-American slaves This book examines how these women creatively fought proselytisation, challenged anti- Semitism, maintained a distinctive southern Judaism, promoted their own status and legitimacy as southerners, and worked diligently as Confederate ambassadors.Trade Review“. . . Stollman’s impressive command of the existing primary sources and secondary literature. . . offer[s] an intriguing addition to the historiography of the (upper-class) Jewish American experience before 1865. Stollman clearly shows that Judaism remained a part of her subjects’ private—and sometimes public—lives in the antebellum South.” -- Anders Bo Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark * American Studies, Vol. 53, no. 2 *“Stollman has written what may be the first monograph exclusively focused on Jewish women in the antebellum South. Arguing that Jewish women in this region encountered particular pressures, including a powerful undercurrent of anti-Semitism that she contends other historians have underplayed, Stollman focuses on their efforts to defend and advance their identities as Jews and as Southerners. The author challenges what she describes as the regnant declension narrative that emphasizes religious and cultural assimilation among Southern Jewish women. . . . two chapters in particular present fresh perspectives: one on the relationship between Jewish women and slaves, and another on their voluntarism during the Civil War.” -- A. Mendelsohn, College of Charleston * CHOICE (November 2013) *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Destined to become a classic primer about modern Yemen and the flaws of global capitalism, Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us About The World provides a wealth of knowledge about the plight of modern Yemen and the contemporary world." * Arab Studies Quarterly *“A masterful new study. . . . Blumi’s work provides an invaluable service to those seeking to understand the current war on Yemen in its historical context." * Arab Calgary News *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex." * Asian Review of World History *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex. It collapses so many 'divides' in scholarly considerations of 'weak' states and polities on the so-called periphery versus so-called core states. It gives agency to the peoples and groups of what are often seen to be marginal states and societies, rarely discussed in relation to world politics or global political development. . . . A must-read for anyone claiming to know and understand the world we live in today, regardless of their field of scholarly research." * Asian Review of World Histories *"Blumi’s respect and compassion for the people of Yemen are palpable, and because of this, Destroying Yemen has moral immediacy rarely found in scholarship. The work is accessibly written, and thus can inform a more general audience, in addition to the cadre of regional specialists, on whose analysis it will hopefully have an impact. Moreover, anyone with media credentials that wishes to ‘report’ on the brutality Yemenis now face day after day should read it very carefully before filing his or her story." * Global Intellectual History *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex. It collapses so many 'divides' in scholarly considerations of 'weak' states and polities on the so-called periphery versus so-called core states. It gives agency to the peoples and groups of what are often seen to be marginal states and societies, rarely discussed in relation to world politics or global political development. . . . A must-read for anyone claiming to know and understand the world we live in today, regardless of their field of scholarly research." * Asian Review of World Histories *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Dates, Abbreviations, and Transliteration Introduction 1 • The Quest for Global Hegemony Starts There 2 • The Region That Pumps the Heart of the Cold War, 1941–1960 3 • Birthing Revolution: A Genealogy of the 1962 Coup 4 • Wrong from the Start: Modernization and Development and the Violence They Spun 5 • Making Yemen Dance: The Regime and the Politics of Chaos 6 • Plundering Yemen and Its Post-Spring Hiatus Coda: Yemen’s Relevance to the Larger World Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisCollected letters of a Confederate officer and his family detail daily life and loss on the battlefield.Hope, sacrifice, and restoration: throughout the American Civil War and its aftermath, the Foster family endured all of these in no small measure. Drawing from dozens of public and privately owned letters, A. Gibert Kennedy recounts the story of his great-great-grandfather and his family in A South Carolina Upcountry Saga: The Civil War Letters of Barham Bobo Foster and His Family, 1860–1863.Barham Bobo Foster was a gentleman planter from the Piedmont who signed the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession and served as a lieutenant colonel in the Third South Carolina Volunteers alongside his two sons. Kennedy’s primary sources are letters written by Foster and his sons, but he also references correspondence involving Foster’s daughters and his wife, Mary Ann.The letters describe experiences on the battlefields of Virginia and South Carolina, vividly detailing camp life, movements, and battles along with stories of bravery, loss, and sacrifice. The Civil War cost Foster his health, all that he owned, and his two sons, though he was able to rebuild with the help of his wife and three daughters. Supplementing the correspondence with maps, illustrations, and genealogical information, Kennedy shows the full arc of the Foster family’s struggle and endurance in the Civil War era.

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Book SynopsisFollowing the defeat of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Chickamauga, Gen. Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee followed the retreating Federal army to Chattanooga and partially surrounded Rosecrans and his men by occupying Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga Valley, and Missionary Ridge. The Battle of Chattanooga would prove the final defeat of the Confederacy in East Tennessee and open the door to Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. In this newly revised second edition of his classic guidebook, Matt Spruill revisits his standard-setting tours of the Chattanooga National Military Park, providing updates and new directions after twenty years of park improvements. He recounts the story of the November 1863 battle of Chattanooga using official reports and observations by commanding officers in their own words. The book is organized in a format still used by the military on staff rides, allowing the reader to understand how the battle was fought and why leaders made the decisions they did. Unlike other books on the battle of Chattanooga, this work guides the reader through the battlefield, allowing both visitor and armchair traveler alike to see the battle through the eyes of its participants. Numerous tour “stops” take the reader through the battles for Chattanooga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold Gap. With easy-to-follow instructions, extensive and updated tactical maps, eyewitness accounts, and editorial analyses, the reader is transported to the center of the action. With this second edition, Storming the Heights will continue to be the go-to guide for Civil War enthusiasts interested in touring this sacred ground.

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Book SynopsisMost general histories of the Civil War pay scant attention to the many important military events that took place in the Lower Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border. It was here, for example, that many of the South's cotton exports, all-important to its funding for the war effort, were shuttled across the Rio Grande into Mexico for shipment to markets across the Atlantic. It was here that the Union blockade was felt perhaps most keenly. And it was here where longstanding cross-border rivalries and shifting political fortunes on both sides of the river made for a constant undercurrent of intrigue. And yet, most accounts of this long and bloody conflict give short shrift to the complexities of the ethnic tensions, political maneuvering, and international diplomacy that vividly colored the Civil War in this region.Now, Christopher L. Miller, Russell K. Skowronek, and Roseann Bacha-Garza have woven together the history and archaeology of the Lower Rio Grande Valley into a densely illustrated travel guide featuring important historical and military sites of the Civil War period. Blue and Gray on the Border integrates the sites, colorful personalities, cross-border conflicts, and intriguing historical vignettes that outline the story of the Civil War along the Texas-Mexico border. This resource-packed book will aid heritage travelers, students, and history buffs in their discovery of the rich history of the Civil War in the Rio Grande Valley.

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Book SynopsisThe American Civil War has intrigued millions of readers for 150 years. But how much do we know about the real lives of Americans on the battlefields and in trenches and winter quarters when the sodiers has a respite from combat? Civil War Trivia looks inside the conflict to examine the many fascinating and heartrending stories about this great war.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This is history written on a grand scale, a masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history." — New Republic “The [book’s] rewards stem from Foner’s deep understanding of the literature of the period and his ability to draw freely from it, so that his arguments sprout in deep soil; and from his disciplined imagination, which neither approves nor condemns, but characterizes, and at its best dramatizes situations, preserving and savoring their possibilities, so that the betrayal of Reconstruction with a terrible poignancy.” — Theodore Rosengarten, The Nation "With this book, Mr. Foner becomes the preeminent historian of Reconstruction." — New York Times Book Review "[Reconstruction] may very well turn out to be this generation's defining interpretation of this most misunderstood passage in the nation's history." — Wall Street Journal "A remarkable clarity is one of the many beauties of this book that dwells on so many conflicts and ambiguities . . . Foner's Reconstruction is a smart book of enormous strengths." — Boston Globe “Eric Foner has put together this terrible story with greater cogency and power, I believe, than has been brought to the subject heretofore.” — New York Review of Books “Foner’s book traces in rich detail the bitter course of the history of the South’s failure to adjust to the revolution that brought the Civil War. Only by tracing that history and understanding can the region fully disenthrall itself even today. No book could be more timely. ” — Atlanta Constitution “Foner’s book brings to distinguished fruition one great cycle of Reconstruction historiography.” — New York Review of Books

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Book SynopsisThe amazing, often bizarre, story of Franco's fellow travellers in the war against Republican Spain

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Book SynopsisSoon after Alexander Gardner's "Photographic Sketch Book" was published, in 1866, it became the Civil War's best-known visual record and helped define how viewers would come to know the war. This study of a pivotal American historical document, approaching it from the perspective of visual studies as well as American literature and history.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction The Image of War Anthony W. Lee Verbal Battlefields Elizabeth Young Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisA sweeping survey of the impact of the Civil War on American painting and photography in the 19th centuryTrade Review“The Civil War and American Art is a scholarly and a narrative achievement both harrowing and sublime. Eleanor Jones Harvey has written a keenly critical and often lyrical assessment of the war she calls all but “unpaintable.” In genre painting that captured universal meanings out of local episodes in the ugly ironies of war, and especially in the new moods, metaphors, and forms that landscape painters drew from the war, Harvey demonstrates a profound, seismic influence of history on art. But she also brilliantly demonstrates that artists, even the photographers, could not so much re-make the actual history of our Armageddon as they could represent what we might indirectly see or learn from such a withering and mythic experience as modern war.”--David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory -- David W. Blight“Eleanor Jones Harvey’s The Civil War and American Art is the rare book that connects the dots between art and history so well that the reader assumes that the subject is well-worn. It is not. The book…deserves to win awards in two disciplines: Art history and American history.…"—Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes -- Tyler Green * Modern Art Notes *“A great art history tour and coffee-table topper.”—Garden & Gun * Garden & Gun *“Provocative and insightful.”—Stephen May, Antiques and the Arts Weekly -- Stephen May * Antiques and the Arts Weekly *"The latest from Harvey. . . provides a nuanced, sensitive, and deeply informed accounting of a major period in the history of American art. . . . The comprehensive study manages to remain engaging across its redolent academic and historical interests, creating a sincere excitement appropriate to Harvey's always insightful and vital reckoning with America's scarred past.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review * Publishers Weekly *Winner in the Photography/Art category at the 2013 Great Southeast Book Festival. -- Great Southeast Festival * JM Northern Media LLC *"The Civil War and American Art is a glorious companion piece to a moving, beautifully curated, perspective-altering show. . . . Harvey’s book is perfect for lovers of American art and history.” —PopMatters * PopMatters *“Harvey skillfully integrates literature and journalism into a thoughtful and rich narrative of this pivotal period. An important cohesive assessment for scholars that is also broadly accessible and well-illustrated…”—Library Journal, starred review * Library Journal *“a beautiful companion volume…”—The Nation * The Nation *“Harvey’s catalogue text stands as a monumental, often thrilling feat of detailed scholarship”—Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker -- Peter Schjeldahl * The New Yorker *“One of the great publishing triumphs of the Civil War Sesquicentennial.”—North Carolina Historical Review * North Carolina Historical Review *Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 in the Art & Architecture Category. -- Outstanding Academic Title * Choice *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Outstanding. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written ... We can now add their names to the human toll of America's greatest conflict" -- James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of 'Battle Cry Of Freedom'

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Book SynopsisWelsh miners made up one of the largest contingents within the British Battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Coming from the valleys all across South Wales, they brought with them a political tradition unique in Britain in its combination of trade union militancy, radical extra-parliamentary activity and internationalism. Hywel Francis draws on a wide variety of contemporary sources to paint a vivid picture of the tumultuous politics of South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s - the context for the decision made by so many to volunteer. The book describes the process of volunteering, the militant role played by the Welsh volunteers, and the mass movements of political solidarity with Spain within Wales. It also includes many illustrations, and reproduces letters written by volunteers to their relatives and friends back in Wales. This updated 2012 edition includes a new preface and a newly compiled complete list of all Welsh volunteers.Trade Review'A fascinating study - pays homage to Cambria rather than Catalonia, and memorably so' Kenneth O Morgan, TLS 'Succeeds brilliantly in restoring the humanity of his true subjects, the volunteers - men formed by their time and place who consciously chose to express their commitment to a cause in the bravest way possible.' Dai Smith, Guardian

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Book SynopsisThe Missouri History Museum archives are bursting with collections that provide firsthand accounts of both historic and everyday moments, but when archivist M. E. Kodner came across the James Love letters, she knew she had discovered something extraordinary. My Dear Molly consists of the 166 letters that St. Louisan James Love wrote to his fiancee, Eliza Mary "Molly" Wilson, during his Civil War service. The letters discuss the war, including activities in Missouri, battles, Love's life as a soldier, and his time in a Confederate prison, in addition to detailing the love story of James and Molly. Spanning the entire Civil War period, the letters give a full account of both the ongoing conflict and the many different aspects of Love's life, making My Dear Molly a unique contribution to our literature of the time period. The book opens with a prologue describing Love's life before the war, including his immigration to the United States from Ireland, his early career, and a trip to Australia he took in the 1850s. The body of the text consists of his letters and is divided into three sections: Love's early service with the Fifth US Reserve Corps, most of which was spent in Missouri; his service with the Eighth Kansas Infantry, which includes descriptions of military life and battle, ending with him being wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga and taken prisoner; and his years in various Confederate prisons and his attempts to escape. Each portion of the book begins with an introduction to place the letters in their historical context and to briefly explain the events and people that Love mentions in his letters. It concludes with an epilogue describing his final, successful escape, his life with Molly after the war, how the letters came to the Missouri History Museum, and Kodner's discovery of her connections through family friends to James and Molly's descendants. My Dear Molly is a remarkable, riveting volume that will add much to our knowledge of the Civil War period-its battles and conflicts as well as the experiences of ordinary Americans like James and Molly.

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Book Synopsis"Readers of this book who thought they knew a lot about the U.S. Civil War will discover that much of what they 'knew' is wrong. For readers whose previous knowledge is sketchy but whose desire to learn is strong, the separation of myth from reality is an important step toward mastering the subject. The essays will generate lively discussion and new insights." —James M. McPherson, Professor Emeritus, Princeton UniversityTrade Review"I never imagined that my Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, first published in 2003, would prove to be so enduring a format for helping students of all kinds to rethink key moments in human history. It is therefore a great honor to see that the book has now inspired Hackett Publishing Company's "Myths of History" series, expertly and effectively edited by Alfred J. Andrea and Andrew Holt.” —Matthew Restall, Pennsylvania State University"Wesley Moody's clear, engaging book tackles enduring Civil War myths with grace, candor, and persuasive evidence. By exploring a wide range of subjects including the war's causes, soldiers, leaders, prisons, and battlefields, this volume's group of talented historians accomplishes more than myth busting. Each scholar reveals deeper, more satisfying stories hidden beneath Civil War fallacies and falsehoods. As a result, Civil War students and enthusiasts will find more than facts in this compelling book; they’ll encounter the complexities of real war, the long shadows of memory, and the hard work that historians conduct to illuminate the past." —Jason Phillips, Eberly Professor of Civil War History, West Virginia University"Seven Myths of the Civil War is well-written, engaging, accessible, and of very sound scholarship. In this volume some of the premier scholars in the field of Civil War history weigh in and root out the causes, courses, and continuing consequences of these persistent mythologies in ways that are at once both easily accessible and necessarily nuanced. I plan to use this collection of essays as a centerpiece of my next Civil War-themed course. I’ll use it to introduce the prevailing myths regarding the Civil War Era, then point up the ways in which the historical record can be seen to utterly debunk those myths." —James Hill Welborn III, Georgia College & State UniversityTable of ContentsContents: Series Editors' Foreword Editor's Preface Introduction Confederate States' Rights: A Contradiction in Terms Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist? African Americans in Confederate Military Service: Myth and Reality The Myth of the "Great" Conventional Battlefield War Civil War Prisons: The Legacy of Responsibility The Lost Causers' Favorite Target: Grant the Butcher Marching through Georgia: The Myth of Sherman's Total War Epilogue Suggested Readings

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Book SynopsisFeaturing hundreds of first-hand writings from the American Civil War, this final installment of the highly acclaimed four-volume series traces events from March 1864 to June 1865 After 150 years the Civil War still holds a central place in American history and self-understanding. It is our greatest national drama, at once heroic, tragic, and epic—our Iliad, but also our Bible, a story of sin and judgment, suffering and despair, death and resurrection in a “new birth of freedom.” The Civil War: The Final Year brings together letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems to provide an incomparable literary portrait of a nation at war with itself, while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union to final victory and slavery and secession to their ultimate destruction. The final volume of this highly acclaimed four-volume series begins with the controversial Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond in March 1864 and ends with the proclamation of emancipation in Texas in June 1865. It collects 160 pieces by more than one hundred participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Herman Melville, as well as Union officers Charles Harvey Brewster, James A. Connolly, and Stephen Minot Weld; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith W. McGuire; freed slaves Spottswood Rice, Garrison Frazier, and Frances Johnson; and Confederate soldiers J.F.J. Caldwell, Samuel T. Foster, and William Pegram. The selections include vivid and haunting firsthand accounts of battles and campaigns—the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Atlanta, the Crater, Franklin, and Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas—as well as of the Fort Pillow massacre; the struggle to survive inside Andersonville prison; the burning of Columbia and Richmond; the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment; the surrender at Appomattox; and Lincoln’s assassination. The Civil War: The Final Year includes an introduction, headnotes, a chronology of events, biographical and explanatory endnotes, full-color endpaper maps, and an index.

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Book SynopsisThis work offers a contemporaneous portrait of Old Virginia, her unwavering stance on State sovereignty, and her fight to the death to defend the fundamental principle upon which the Republic was founded.

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Book SynopsisThis volume analyzes the cultural and intellectual impact of the war, considering how it reshaped Americans'' spiritual, cultural, and intellectual habits. The Civil War engendered an existential crisis more profound even than the changes of the previous decades. Its duration, scale, and intensity drove Americans to question how they understood themselves as people. The chapters in the third volume distinguish the varied impacts of the conflict in different places on people''s sense of themselves. Focusing on particular groups within the war, including soldiers, families, refugees, enslaved people, and black soldiers, the chapters cover a broad range of ways that participants made sense of the conflict as well as how the war changed their attitudes about gender, religion, ethnicity, and race. The volume concludes with a series of essays evaluating the ways Americans have memorialized and remembered the Civil War in art, literature, film, and public life.Table of ContentsPart I. Values: 1. Wartime masculinities James J. Broomall; 2. Northern women and the Civil War Nina Silber; 3. Southern women and the Civil War Sarah E. Gardner; 4. Religion in the Civil War era Timothy L. Wesley; 5. Economic and social values in the Civil War Brian P. Luskey; Part II. Social Experience: 6. Families in the Civil War James Marten; 7. Refugees and movement in the Civil War David Silkenat; 8. Citizen soldiers Susannah J. Ural; 9. Immigrant America and the Civil War David T. Gleeson; 10. Emancipation and war Yael A. Sternhell; 11. The black military experience Joseph P. Reidy; 12. Motives and morale Paul A. Cimbala; 13. Urban and rural America in the Civil War Frank Towers; Part III. Outcomes: 14. Making peace Elizabeth R. Varon; 15. Reconstruction during the Civil War Mark Wahlgren Summers; 16. Veterans and the postwar world Barbara A. Gannon; 17. The Civil War and the American state Gregory P. Downs; 18. The Civil War and American law Christian G. Samito; 19. The Civil War in visual art David C. Ward; 20. The Civil War in American thought Peter S. Carmichael; 21. The Civil War in literary memory John Casey; 22. The Civil War in film Craig A. Warren; 23. The Civil War in public memory Caroline E. Janney.

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Book SynopsisIn this path-breaking work on the American Civil War, Joan E. Cashin explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war. This war ''stuff'' included the skills of white Southern civilians, as well as such material resources as food, timber, and housing. At first, civilians were willing to help Confederate or Union forces, but the war took such a toll that all civilians, regardless of politics, began focusing on their own survival. Both armies took whatever they needed from human beings and the material world, which eventually destroyed the region''s ability to wage war. In this fierce contest between civilians and armies, the civilian population lost. Cashin draws on a wide range of documents, as well as the perspectives of environmental history and material culture studies. This book provides an entirely new perspective on the war era.Trade Review'Expertly researched and beautifully written, War Stuff is a must-read for anyone interested in the Civil War and for all who wish to understand the fascinating, complex ways that war (any war) can fundamentally alter the manner in which humans interact with each other and with the natural world. Integrating material culture, environmental history, and war and society studies, Cashin's book is a tour de force that will shape Civil War studies for years to come.' Lisa M. Brady, author of War Upon the Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes during the American Civil War'With eloquent prose and rich detail, this book - the first full environmental history of the Civil War - demonstrates the staggering ecological costs of the conflict and the utter failure of courts and politicians to safeguard civilians in the face of inadequate supply lines and a breakdown in military discipline. In this brilliant examination of the intimate connections between military and environmental history, one of the preeminent historians of the Civil War era offers strikingly original insights into how the struggle for resources and logistical challenges shaped military tactics, civilian morale, class and race relations, and the future of the South's economy.' Steven Mintz, University of Texas, Austin'This important book makes us aware, as never before, of enormous civilian suffering during the Civil War. It invigorates Civil War studies by treating military history, material culture, the environment, gender, cultural history, and military-civilian relations from a fresh perspective and in a deeply researched manner. Cashin shows that in both sections, but especially in the South, soldiers ruthlessly competed with civilians for resources. The consequences included widespread hunger, starvation, deforestation, the invasion and destruction of many homes, and the breakdown of long-established patterns of communalism in the South. This is an outstanding work by an energetic, insightful, and accomplished scholar.' Paul D. Escott, Wake Forest University, North Carolina'… immensely rewarding.' War History Online (www.warhistoryonline.com)'Cashin's work makes a valuable contribution to the study of the impact of the war on the Home Front, and how morality rapidly deteriorates in wartime.' The NYMAS Review'Makes a valuable contribution to the study of the impact of the war on the Confederate Home Front, and how morality rapidly deteriorates in wartime.' A. A. Nofi, Strategy Page (www.strategypage.com)'In War Stuff Joan E. Cashin explores the consequences of foraging, requisitioning, and sometimes just plain stealing by Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War … Lost Cause mythology obscured the role of slavery and white supremacy, and it erased the memory of what white Southerners did to one another during the war. They 'lost the ability to tell the truth about what happened to them,' Cashin concludes, 'namely that the rebel army exploited the civilian population and its material resources to the full, just as the Yankee army did' … War Stuff returns that story to the forefront in desperate, compelling detail.' Brian Allen Drake, The Journal of American History'This is a valuable book that reopens a worthwhile discussion of the excesses of the Civil War.' Evan Kutzler, H-Environment'… at once a textured and nuanced read, and an elegantly and convincingly argued book … This wide-ranging book brings together diverse sources from a broad range of contexts - letters, diaries, legal records, newspaper accounts, government claims, and material sources - to detail the great environmental and human impact of the Civil War. It continues to broaden the lens of focus away from battles and conflict to consider the lived experience of the Civil War and its aftermath, especially the shared experiences of depravation of secessionist and Union sympathizers living in the South.' Sarah Anne Carter, The American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Old South; 2. People; 3. Sustenance; 4. Timber; 5. Habitat; 6. Breakdown; 7. 1865 and after.

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Book SynopsisThis volume offers the most nuanced treatment available of Black engagement with print in the transitional years after the Civil War. It locates and studies materials that many literary historians leave out of narratives of American culture. But as important as such recovery work is, African American Literature in Transition, 18651880 also emphasizes innovative approaches, recognizing that such recovery inherently challenges methods dominant in American literary study. At the book''s core is the recognition that many period texts - by writers from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and William Wells Brown to Mattie Jackson and William Steward - are not only aesthetically striking but also central to understanding key socio-historical and cultural trends in the nineteenth century. Chapters by leading scholars are grouped in three sections - ''Citizenships, Textualities, and Domesticities'', ''Persons and Bodies'', and ''Memories, Materialities, and Locations'' - and focus on debates over raceTable of ContentsBlack Reconstructions: Introduction Eric Gardner; Part I. Citizenships, Textualities, and Domesticities: 1. Sketching Black Citizenship on Installment after the 15th Amendment Derrick R. Spires; 2. Stories of Citizenship: The Rise of Narrative Black Poetry During Reconstruction Stephanie Farrar; 3. National Housekeeping: (Re)dressing the Politics of Whiteness in Nineteenth-Century African American Literary History Rynetta Davis; 4. Reconstructing the Rhetoric of AME Ministry Eric Gardner; Part II. Persons and Bodies: 5. Black Reform, Writing, and Resistance: Textual Politics in the Post-War Era Kathy L. Glass; 6. Post-Civil War Black Childhoods Nazera Sadiq Wright; 7. Disabling Freedom: Bloody Shirt Rhetoric in Postbellum Slave Narratives Keith Michael Green; 8. Radical Respectability and African American Women's Reconstruction Fiction Brigitte Fielder; Part III. Memories, Materialities, and Locations: 9. The Civil War in African American Memory Cody Marrs; 10. African American Literature of the West and the Landscape of Opportunity Janet Neary; 11. Reconstructions of the South in African American Literature Sherita L. Johnson; 12. 'This Is Especially Our Crop': Blackness, Value, and the Reconstruction of Cotton Katherine Adams.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines representations of war throughout American literary history, providing a firm grounding in established criticism and opening up new lines of inquiry. Readers will find accessible yet sophisticated essays that lay out key questions and scholarship in the field. War and American Literature provides a comprehensive synthesis of the literature and scholarship of US war writing, illuminates how themes, texts, and authors resonate across time and wars, and provides multiple contexts in which texts and a war''s literature can be framed. By focusing on American war writing, from the wars with the Native Americans and the Revolutionary War to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this volume illuminates the unique role representations of war have in the US imagination.Trade Review… a diverse volume … It analyses war literature through themes including propaganda, injury, memorialization, cultural change, patriotism, queerness, ecocriticism and whiteness.' Alice Kelly, The Times Literary Supplement'Highly recommended.' G. Grieve-Carlson, Choice ConnectTable of ContentsIntroduction Jennifer Haytock; Part I. Aspects of War in American Literature: 1. War and morality Ty Hawkins; 2. Propaganda for war from the revolution to the Vietnam war Nicholas J. Cull; 3. Representing soldiers Jennifer Haytock; 4. Bodies, injury, medicine Michael Zeitlin; 5. Veterans, trauma, afterwar Philip Beidler; 6. Mourning, elegy, memorialization from the Civil war to Vietnam Steven Trout; 7. On antiwar literature Lawrence Rosenwald; Part II. Cultural Moments and the American Literary Imagination: 8. Liberty, freedom, independence, and war James J. Gigantino II; 9. Indians, defeat, persistence, and resistance Tammy Wahpeconiah; 10. Civil war literature and memory Sarah E. Gardner; 11. African American literature, citizenship, and war, 1863-1932 David Davis; 12. World war I and cultural change in America Pearl James; 13. On the home fronts of two world wars Karsten Piep; 14. Patriotism, nationalism, globalism Jonathan Vincent; 15. The 'good war' script Diederik Oostdijk; 16. The Vietnam war and its legacy Mark A. Heberle; 17. The forever wars Stacey Peebles; Part III. New Lines of Inquiry: 18. War and queerness Eric Keenaghan; 19. War and disability studies John M. Kinder; 20. War and ecocriticism Laura Wright; 21. War and whiteness Roger Luckhurst; 22. War and posthumanism Tim Blackmore.

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Book SynopsisThe object of this volume is to present in as consecutive and comprehensive form as possible the history of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the late Civil War. Many books have been written on the work of other women in this war, but, aside from fugitive newspaper paragraphs, nothing has ever been published concerning the self-sacrificing labors of these Sisterhoods. Whatever may have been the cause of this neglect or indifference, it is evident that the time has arrived to fill this important gap in the literature of the war.

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Book SynopsisGreat Britain and the American Civil War is the telling of what the American Civil War meant to Great Britain; how she regarded it and how she reacted to it. This book is primarily a study in British history in the belief that the American drama had a world significance, and peculiarly a British one.Table of ContentsFor more information, please visit our website at:https://novapublishers.com/shop/great-britain-and-the-american-civil-war/

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Book SynopsisThis book contains rare reproductions of photographs taken during the American Civil War. It is believed to be the first time that the camera was used so extensively on the battle-field. It is the first known collection of its size on the Western Continent and it is the only witness of the scenes enacted during the greatest crisis in the annals of the American nation. It records a tragedy that neither the imagination of the painter nor the skill of the historian can so dramatically relate.Table of ContentsPreface; Original Photographs Taken on the Battlefields; Index.

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Book SynopsisAs a repository for old soldiers' writings, The National Tribune is unequaled yet remains mostly unused. Indeed, it is so good one might call it the Confederate Veteran for Billy Yank.From 1877 to 1943, The National Tribune served as a compendium for Union veteran reminiscences, war yarns, and postbellum reflections. The firsthand treasure-trove began as an eight-page monthly newspaper in 1881 and within a few years it became a weekly. The Washington-based paper was founded by George E. Lemon, a veteran of the 125th New York. Initially an advocate for Union veteran pensions, The National Tribune hit its stride when it began publishing articles about the war penned by the Northern soldiers themselves.Within three years John McElroy, a Union veteran with editing experience and the author of a dramatic memoir about his confinement at Andersonville (1879), assumed the reins as managing editor. His keen eye for detail and deep connections elevated the quality and quantity of the content and resulted in the publication of thousands of exclusive firsthand accounts. The National Tribune's final issue was on December 30, 1943. By that late date, the Union veterans who had fought the war were nearly all gone.More than 1,000 items were published on the Atlanta Campaign alonearticles, memoirs, and letters on every topic imaginable sent in by Union soldiers who had followed General Sherman into Georgia in 1864. The first appeared in June 1879 on the battle of Kennesaw Mountain. The National Tribune Remembers the Atlanta Campaign, edited by Stephen Davis, offers 70 selections pertaining to the Atlanta Campaign. Our hope is that these entries advance the cause of Civil War scholarship by bringing back into print an array of some of the most important writing about the conflict penned by the men who fought in it.

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Book SynopsisAt a regimental reunion in 1880, former Confederate Brigadier General Samuel McGowan lauded the 12th South Carolina Infantry as The finest of that immortal army, foremost in the charge, and the invincible Twelfth. The 12th regiment was part of McGowan's Brigade from early 1863 through the end of the war. The aging brigadier, wounded four times in combat, was an authority on the regiment's reputation. It would be impossible on an occasion of this kind, to give anything like a history of the Twelfth Regiment, or tell half of its gallant deeds. That, he declared, would require a volume. With Benjamin L. Cwayna's The Invincible Twelfth: The 12th South Carolina Infantry of the Gregg-McGowan Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, that volume has finally arrived.The field career of the regiment kicked off with an embarrassing defeat in its first engagement on the South Carolina coast in 1861 at Port Royal Sound. The demoralizing event could have set the regiment on a path of self-fulfilling failure and disaster, but a change in colonels from a perpetually absent political appointee to a scrappy legislator born and bred in the upcountry turned the tide. Dixon Barnes instilled discipline and strong leadership in the unit and began a transformational process that turned the raw recruits into some of the Confederacy's most reliable soldiers.The 12th was transferred to what would become Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and was brigaded with four other regiments from the Palmetto State. Together, they fought in nearly every major engagement of the war in the Eastern Theater. The 12th earned a high reputation within the army for drill and discipline, and was well known for its impetuous, devastating, and sometimes reckless attacks and counterattacks. That penchant for taking the fight to the enemy came at a bloody price. By the end of the war, only 149 of the nearly 1,400 men who served in the ranks of the regiment surrendered at Appomattox Court House.Author Cwayna based his study on fifteen years of diligent research, mining every available primary source for information to painstakingly construct the 12th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry's history from its formation in 1861 until its last official reunion in the 1880s and beyond. Through the words of its soldiers and officers, the stories of long and arduous marches, lack of food, horrendous and unimaginable carnage in battle, and a singular focus on continuing the struggle to gain independence at any cost and under innumerable odds takes shape. The Invincible Twelfth is the story of a remarkable regiment which has long deserved to have its story told.

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Book SynopsisHis friends called him Sam. His wife called him Ulyss. His initials suggested a name evocative of one of his most important battlefield successes: Unconditional Surrender' Grant.Ulysses S. Grant didn't think he'd even have an opportunity to get into the war, yet, by the time it ended, he commanded every soldier serving in the United States Army. Along the way he racked up impressive victories, learned from valuable mistakes, broke the back of the Confederacy, survived the backbiting of his immediate superior, and earned the respect and support of the president. Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the war! exclaimed Abraham Lincoln after the particularly vital victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi.Grant came from humble beginnings along the Ohio River, made a military name for himself near that river's confluence with the Mississippi, and went on to use the Father of Waters to split the Confederacy in two. That effort set him on the road to Chattanooga, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, the long siege of Petersburg, and Appomattox Court House in some of the war's most intense and infamous battles. In less than three years, the non-descript and unimpressive colonel of a regiment of Illinois volunteers rose to become the highest-ranking officer in the army and the first permanent lieutenant general since George Washington. His ultimate victory set him on a path to two terms in the White Housea far cry from that small clapboard house in which he was born.His meteoric rise from obscurity made Ulysses S. Grant the ultimate man of irony. Unassuming. Unpretentious. Unwilling to retreat. There will be no turning back, he once famously declared.Unconditional Surrender allows readers to walk in Grant's footsteps with Dr. Curt Fields, the nation's foremost Ulysses S. Grant living historian. Fields has offered a first-person portrayal of Grant since February 2010. Distilled within these pages are years of extensive study that offer an ideal introduction to the dust-covered man from the West who won the Civil War and saved the United States.

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Book SynopsisJohn Brown is a common name, but the John Brown who masterminded the failed raid at Harpers Ferry was anything but common. His failed efforts have left an imprint upon our history, and his story still swirls in controversy. Was he a madman who felt his violent solution to slavery was ordained by Providence or a heroic freedom fighter who tried to liberate the downtrodden slave? These bipolar characterizations of the violent abolitionist have captivated Americans. The view that prevailed from the time of the raid to well into the twentieth century - that his actions were the product of an unbalanced mind - has since shifted to the idea that he committed courageous acts to undo a terrible injustice.The debate still rages, but not as much about his ultimate goal as the method he used in attempting to right what he considered an intolerable wrong. Are citizens justified in bypassing the normal legal or governmental processes in a violent way when they fail, in the eyes of the dissenter, to correct a wrong that touched so many? Brown’s use of violence was to strike terror in the heart of slave owners, terror that Brown hoped would intimidate them to free their slaves to ensure their families’ safety.Despite the differences between modern terrorist acts and Brown’s own violent acts, when Brown’s characteristics are compared to the definition of terrorism as set forth by scholars of terrorism, he fits the profile. Nevertheless, today Brown is a martyred hero who gave his life attempting to terminate the evil institution of human bondage. Brown’s violent method of using terrorism to accomplish this is downplayed or ignored, despite labeled by historians as America’s first terrorist. The modern view of Brown has unintentionally made him a "good terrorist," despite the repugnance of terrorism that makes the thought of a benevolent or good terrorist an oxymoron.This new biography covers Brown's background and the context to his decision to carry out the raid, a detailed narrative of the raid and its consequences for both those involved and America; and an exploration of the changing characterisation of Brown since his death.Trade ReviewThis is an interesting and thought provoking read, which is accordingly recommended. It would make an interesting, but uncomfortable, wargame. * Miniature Wargames - John Drewienkiewicz *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1: The Making of a Terrorist 2: Launching the War of Liberation 3: Igniting the Fuse: The Attack on Harpers Ferry 4: Anguish and Travail 5: An Agitated Nation 6: The Rush to Judgment 7: Hemp Justice 8: Rehearsal for War Notes Bibliographical Comment Index

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Book Synopsis"Readers of this book who thought they knew a lot about the U.S. Civil War will discover that much of what they 'knew' is wrong. For readers whose previous knowledge is sketchy but whose desire to learn is strong, the separation of myth from reality is an important step toward mastering the subject. The essays will generate lively discussion and new insights." —James M. McPherson, Professor Emeritus, Princeton UniversityTrade Review"I never imagined that my Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, first published in 2003, would prove to be so enduring a format for helping students of all kinds to rethink key moments in human history. It is therefore a great honor to see that the book has now inspired Hackett Publishing Company's "Myths of History" series, expertly and effectively edited by Alfred J. Andrea and Andrew Holt.” —Matthew Restall, Pennsylvania State University"Wesley Moody's clear, engaging book tackles enduring Civil War myths with grace, candor, and persuasive evidence. By exploring a wide range of subjects including the war's causes, soldiers, leaders, prisons, and battlefields, this volume's group of talented historians accomplishes more than myth busting. Each scholar reveals deeper, more satisfying stories hidden beneath Civil War fallacies and falsehoods. As a result, Civil War students and enthusiasts will find more than facts in this compelling book; they’ll encounter the complexities of real war, the long shadows of memory, and the hard work that historians conduct to illuminate the past." —Jason Phillips, Eberly Professor of Civil War History, West Virginia University"Seven Myths of the Civil War is well-written, engaging, accessible, and of very sound scholarship. In this volume some of the premier scholars in the field of Civil War history weigh in and root out the causes, courses, and continuing consequences of these persistent mythologies in ways that are at once both easily accessible and necessarily nuanced. I plan to use this collection of essays as a centerpiece of my next Civil War-themed course. I’ll use it to introduce the prevailing myths regarding the Civil War Era, then point up the ways in which the historical record can be seen to utterly debunk those myths." —James Hill Welborn III, Georgia College & State University"Moody and his team of scholars have accomplished their goal of identifying and dispelling key myths of the American Civil War, or at least of spurring students of the Civil War to not take past interpretations for granted. All seven essays in Seven Myths of the Civil War are valuable examinations of the myths they set out to correct. The book is recommended reading to anyone who wants to learn more about these topics, whether they think they will agree or disagree with the authors' arguments." —Justin Vance, College of Western Idaho, in The Journal of Southern History"[T]he accessibility and persuasiveness of [these] essays separate them from other scholarly works. Individuals with a cursory knowledge of the American Civil War but not possessing an academic background will find the structure easy to follow, the evidence compelling, and the arguments convincing. Academics will appreciate the historiographical treatments within each essay, and perhaps find useful examples to use in the classroom or entry points for new scholarship. The seven essays in this collection constitute a fraction of those myths still enveloping the war, but they address some of the most pernicious and divisive myths currently debated in the twenty-first century." —Adam Zucconi, Richard Bland College, on H-WarTable of ContentsContents: Series Editors' Foreword Editor's Preface Introduction Confederate States' Rights: A Contradiction in Terms Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist? African Americans in Confederate Military Service: Myth and Reality The Myth of the "Great" Conventional Battlefield War Civil War Prisons: The Legacy of Responsibility The Lost Causers' Favorite Target: Grant the Butcher Marching through Georgia: The Myth of Sherman's Total War Epilogue Suggested Readings

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Book SynopsisThe English Civil War is a subject of perennial interest. This book presents the 'essentials' of the conflict in the form of a readable chronological narrative, beginning with the causes of the war and ending with the execution of King Charles I. The author, who has been exploring battlefields for 50 years, describes the celebrated battles - including Edgehill, Marston Moor and Naseby - together with the major political events which characterized one of the most turbulent periods in English History. Contemporary documents and leading secondary sources have been used to produce a picture of those troubled times - years which revolutionised government and witnessed the first faltering steps of Parliamentarians towards the democratic form of government we know today. Students of the English Civil War will find this an invaluable source of reference, while the general reader will be encouraged to delve deeper into what is, undeniably, the most fascinating of historical subjects.

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Book SynopsisIn 2010, the al Rabeeah family left their home in Iraq in hope of a safer life. They moved to Homs, in Syria - just before the Syrian civil war broke out. Abu Bakr, one of eight children, was ten years old when the violence began on the streets around him: car bombings, attacks on his mosque and school, firebombs late at night. Homes tells of the strange juxtapositions of growing up in a war zone: horrific, unimaginable events punctuated by normalcy - soccer, cousins, video games, friends. Homes is the remarkable true story of how a young boy emerged from a war zone - and found safety in Canada - with a passion for sharing his story and telling the world what is truly happening in Syria. As told to her by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah, writer Winnie Yeung has crafted a heartbreaking, hopeful, and urgently necessary book that provides a window into understanding Syria.Trade Review"Besides the terrific prose and its more harrowing details, what really makes the 220-page book special is its fully realized portrait of normal, everyday Syria slowly being chipped away at by numerous interests wrestling for power. One of the book's great strengths is the on-the-streets feeling in Syria - kids playing soccer one moment, avoiding unknown peril sneaking through familiar alleys to avoid dangerous checkpoints the next." - Edmonton Journal

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Book SynopsisBeyond the Civil War Hospital understands Reconstruction as a period of emotional turmoil that precipitated a struggle for form in cultural production. By treating selected texts from that era as multifaceted contributions to Reconstruction's "mental adaptation process" (Leslie Butler), Kirsten Twelbeck diagnoses individual conflicts between the "heart and the brain" only partly compensated for by a shared concern for national healing. By tracing each text's unique adaptation of the healing trope, she identifies surprising disagreement over racial equality, women's rights, and citizenship. The book pairs female and male white authors from the antislavery North, and brings together a broad range of genres.Trade Review"Firmly grounded in American Literary Studies and Cultural Studies, "Beyond the Civil War Hospital" convincingly shows how textual forms, and especially literary experimentations, can function as key sites for negotiating the political and societal future of the United States of America." Marc Priewe, Amerikastudien / American Studies, 66 (2021)

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