Who cold ask for a more supportive advocate in the blogosphere as I continue to work to bring a more critical voice to the Civil War community. Thanks to Brooks Simpson I have a brand new group of Confederate enthusiasts who will spend their days cursing my name.
Have a great weekend Brooks.
“A New Day at Appomattox” by John Paul Strain
Greg, — I think Gary’s book is a great place to start on the popular culture side of things. You may want to check out Will Kaufman’s 2006 book, _The Civil War in American Culture_. It goes beyond the narrow focus of Gallagher’s book which sticks to movies and art. Of course, if you haven’t already, you need to read Horowitz’s _Confederates in the Attic_.
Richard, — Thanks for the vote of confidence. As I stated in a comment from the original post I believe Strain is a very talented artist relative to my own skills. That said, I tend to laugh more than anything else when I see one of his paintings. They tend toward the romantic which I find to be rather childish. I do, however, believe that the wide assortment of items for sale that include Civil War art are crap. Or perhaps I should just say, silly.
I my self do not always agree with you, but I do appreciate the academic honesty that you bring to your blog. However, was it really appropriate to call Strain’s art “crap”?
Had you not down that…
I know Civil war commemorative artwork is biased to the Confederates, but, in your opinion, what exactly does that say about how well entrenched the Lost Cause myth has been ingrained into the war’s memory? Gary Gallagher, in his recent work “Causes Won, Lost and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War” and in lectures on the topic, points out that Confederate subjects outnumber Union subjects 3 to 1 in popular art. I am finding the cause and memory portions of the Civil War debate most intriguing as I begin to become more involved with the scholarship on the matter and look for ways to teach the topics related to the Civil War more accurately, so much so that I am researching, mostly for my own benefit, what exactly all of the “causes” and “memories” are related to the war. I am just interested in your take on the subject.