Description
Book SynopsisAs rancorous debates over Confederate symbols continue, this work explores how the rebel flag gained its enormous power to inspire and repel. In the process, it shows how the Confederacy sustained itself for as long as it did by cultivating the allegiances of countless ordinary citizens.
Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003 "Colors & Blood represents the best of recent Civil War scholarship applied to a topic of the widest recent interest... Most impressive is [Bonner's] excavation of the place of flags in everyday life and thought... Colors & Blood not only provides insight into the development of the Southern Cross, one of the most controversial images in contemporary America, and into the structure and values of the Confederacy, it also illuminates lasting intersectional understandings of flags in the United States."--Thomas J. Brown, Georgia Historical Quarterly "Thought-provoking... It will appeal to all those who have an interest in flags or the Confederacy, and to those who seek a clearer understanding of the roots of today's Confederate flag controversy."--Richard Sauers, Civil War News "Bonner's outstanding research and analysis provide hope for those who still feel that first-rate scholarship might inform, contextualize, and transcend contemporary historically charged and emotionally passionate polemics. An outstanding work."--Choice "A timely, thorough, and highly sophisticated discussion of the origins, context, and significance of the flag(s) of the Confederacy. Colors and Blood represents quite an achievement... [F]or those who want to understand why the symbols of the Confederate South remained so powerful in the New South, Bonner's close reading of rebel iconography is just what we have waited for."--W. Scott Poole, H-Net Reviews "The book is much more than a history of Confederates and their flags. It is a study of myth-making and symbolism, an interpretation of collective emotion, a meditation on war and violence, and, lastly, a judicious commentary on historical memory and contemporary flag culture... This is a fantastic accomplishment."--Paul Christopher Anderson, American Nineteenth Century History "By using the flag as an organizing principle for the study of the complexities of Confederate nationalism, Bonner has written a book that is useful for scholars, appealing to students, and of interest to the general public as well."--Anne Sarah Rubin, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables, xiii Acknowledgments, xi Introduction: Waving Colors and Boiling Blood, 1 1. The Stars and Stripes of Senator Davis. A Prologue, 8 2. The Standards of State Resistance, 19 3. Selecting and Singing a New Constellation, 39 4. Blood Sacrifice and the Colors of War, 67 5. The Southern Cross and Confederate Consolidation, 96 6. Treason's Banner and the Colors of Loyalty, 125 7. Conquered Banners, Furled and Unfurled, 153 Notes, 179 Index, 213
