Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History

By David R. Goldfield

Book Overview

Newcomers to the South often remark that southerners, at least white southerners, are still fighting the Civil War - a strange preoccupation considering that the war formally ended more than one hundred and thirty-five years ago and fewer than a third of southerners today can claim an ancestor who actually fought in the conflict. But even if the war is far removed both in time and genealogy, it survives in the hearts of many of the region's residents and often in national newspaper headlines concerning battle flags, racial justice, and religious conflicts. In this sweeping narrative of the South from the Civil War to the present, noted historian David Goldfield contemplates the roots of southern memory and explains how this memory has shaped the modern South both for good and ill. He candidly discusses how and why white southern men fashioned the myths of the Lost Cause and the Redemption out of the Civil War and Reconstruction and how they shaped a religion to canonize the heroes and reify the events of those fated years. Goldfield also recounts how blacks and white women eventually crafted a different, more inclusive version of southern history and how that new vision has compete

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807127582
• ISBN13: 9780807127582
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 1.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.4"