Race and reunion : the Civil War in American memory David W. Blight

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blight, David W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Influence.

United States.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Social aspects.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--African Americans.

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--Social aspects.

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877).

War and society--United States--History.

War and society.

Memory--Social aspects--United States--History.

Memory.

Reconciliation--Social aspects--United States--History.

Reconciliation.

United States--Race relations.

Physical Description:

512 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, c2001.

Summary:

"No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In the war's aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America's national reunion." "Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial."--Jacket.

Contents:

1. The dead and the living

2. Regeneration and reconstruction

3. Decoration days

4. Reconstruction and reconciliation

5. Soldiers' memory

6. Soldiers' faith

7. The literature of reunion and its discontents

8. The lost cause and causes not lost

9. Black memory and progress of the race

10. Fifty years of freedom and reunion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bancroft Prize, 2002.

ISBN:

0674003322 (alk. paper)

9780674003323 (alk. paper)

0674008197 (pbk.)

9780674008199 (pbk.)

OCLC:

44313386