Description
Book SynopsisHow the Civil War endures in American life through literature and culture. Recipient of the Eric Hoffer Award's Montaigne MedalThe American Civil War lives on in our collective imagination like few other events. The story of the war has been retold in countless films, novels, poems, memoirs, plays, sculptures, and monuments. Often remembered as an emancipatory struggle, as an attempt to destroy slavery in America now and forever, it is also memorialized as a fight for Southern independence; as a fratricide that divided the national family; and as a dark, cruel conflict defined by its brutality. What do these stories, myths, and rumors have in common, and what do they teach us about modern America? In this fascinating book, Cody Marrs reveals how these narratives evolved over time and why they acquired such lasting power. Marrs addresses an eclectic range of texts, traditions, and creators, from Walt Whitman, Abram Ryan, and Abraham Lincoln to Margaret Mitchell, D. W. Griffith, and W.
Trade ReviewMarrs examines the shifting landscape of Civil War perspectives throughout history using public memory and writing from creators such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Walt Whitman, and Margaret Mitchell. He argues that this continual retelling and reinterpretation reveal the Civil War as an ongoing struggle never far from American consciousness and identity.
—Chelsea Risley,
Southern Review of BooksMarrs weaves a complex history to capture the essence of the literature and art surrounding the Civil War, resulting in a valuable work beneficial to a variety of collections.
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Library JournalNot Even Past is a trenchant, wide-ranging survey of the history that binds us a nation while, at the same time, drives us apart. Because it still needs proving now and again, Marrs' book proves that the American Civil War is with us today as much as it was when it began a century and a half ago.
—Lance Weller,
New York Journal of BooksNot Even Past is an impressive feat that straddles the line between intense academic history and popular history. The world needs more such books.
—Daniel Sunshine,
Civil War Book ReviewThe reader is left with a sense of an America still divided, and, in the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, the Civil War as "...a social revolution... never allowed to complete itself."
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Eric Hoffer Award CommitteeCody Marrs serves up a feast of Civil War stories in his timely, compact, and entertaining new analysis,
Not Even the Past: The Stories We Keep Telling about the Civil War.—LeAnna Keith,
The Journal of Southern HistoryCody Marr's impressive, wide-ranging new book...
—Michel LeMahieu, Clemson University,
American Literary HistoryTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. A Family Squabble
Chapter 2. A Dark and Cruel War
Chapter 3. The Lost Cause
Chapter 4. The Great Emancipation
Afterword. Recent and Future Civil Wars
Acknowledgments
Notes
Suggested Further Reading
Index
