I agree with you that it is a limitation of the format.

Of course, Jim can speak for himself, but it seems to me part of what is driving him is a concern that my interest in slavery/race in the South is part of a broader attempt to vilify it in comparison with a virtuous north. We’ve gone back and forth on this issue for quite some time and at every point along the way I’ve tried to alleviate these concerns. That I do not assume such a naive distinction was one of the main points in my post..

Kevin,

Sorry I went long as well.

Jim,

If I offended you in any way, my apologies.

I’ll take it even a step further than Kevin has. He states “My main historical interest is that of the United States, in large, part because this is where I make my home. That historians make decisions on a particular time and region should not come as any surprise.” There are a host of historians in Texas, where I live, whose sole region of interest is the state of Texas. We teach it as a subject in seventh grade here. It’s what I teach.

While Kevin and other historians choose to narrow their focus, its not because they feel the need to ignore any aspect of history. Recorded human history is between 6,000 and 7,000 years. Academic historians and, in my opinion, any casual student of history who focuses on a particular era or region does so for the intensive study it provides, not because they are under any impression that it is the only part of history that should receive focus. I’ll equate it to medicine. Do you think any less of a doctor because he or she chooses to specialize in cardiac medicine over general practice?

Experiences in life necessarily influence students and teachers of history, narrowing the focus for a variety of reasons. Kevin has offered us at least one of his reasons for narrowing his focus. I was raised in Texas and trace my roots seven generations in the state. That narrows my focus to Texas history, though I also study the US Constitution, Jacksonian Politics and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Why do I study these specific eras, topics and regions? I’ve briefly explained Texas. I had the fortunate opportunity to take an elective in high school focusing on the Constitution in addition to the regular civics class and I have continued to study the document that, from my observations, many Americans have little actual knowledge. The age of Andrew Jackson solidified the two-party system in this country, and while there are those who believe that it is the bane of our society, I find the balancing effect of multiple viewpoints is probably what has, ultimately, helped us survive an event like the Civil War.

But why do I choose to study the Civil War? I’ve outlined it on my own blog, so I won’t belabor the point. Suffice it to say, after witnessing events surrounding the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas in 1998 while a rookie reporter left me with a distinct question of whether Southern gentlemen like Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson were social and political schizophrenics. I went searching for answers. Some I found right away. No one has ever called the character of men like Lee and Jackson, or even Jefferson Davis, into question. They were good men with ideas that were incompatible with a broad definition of equality. Do I believe the nation should have literally split and fought itself over the issue? No, but that’s because we have built into our Consitution a means of peaceful resistance. It’s called an election. That neither side would accept this method of resolving the dispute is a travesty we are still living with today. Other answers were more difficult to wrap my head around. Sure, some Southerners were defending their homeland, but then I ran into Unionists (later discovering I have some in the family tree) and disgruntled Confederates. And that’s only the white Southerners. Basically, I got into a study of the Civil War to try and prove that Lee and Jackson, guys I had long admired, even put on a pedestal, were worthy of the hero worship I had heaped upon them after learning about them in grade school. I just accepted the fact that everybody in the South was a Confederate, except slaves. While it took a man dying and me witnessing the aftermath to begin questioning that and, even then, it took the better part of ten years of study and research to finally come to the conclusion they were just men and men make mistakes and somtimes support the wrong ideas.

Call the war anything you want, but, in the end, it was a war of ideas and ideas are hard to kill. Look at the 150 years since then and that becomes painfully visible. “These United States” are not exceptional because we are better than everybody else in the world. “The United States” is exceptional because its citizens, even though it has taken a long time and there is still work to be done, learn to be better people as they live through a variety of circumstances, both good and bad.

And, please, don’t judge historians because they choose to focus or for their reasons for doing so. The fact that they do makes us better students of history because historians have given us a body of literature that looks much deeper than the one-dimensional ideas presented in a survey course or general history text. While I have only recently come to appreciate this in its full impact, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Kevin:

I’m sorry this went long.

You are very welcome. I find that the true insights only come on that deep level, but than again, I was trained in analytical philosophy which emphasizes detail. Much of what is out there is one-dimensional. I like to consider this blog as one place where you can find a sustained critique of some of these deeply-ingrained themes. Others, of course, may disagree.

Again, I do not take offense to your comments. I was, however, a bit surprised at how little you had to say in response to my post. I am trying to be as honest and as careful as I can in responding to your question re: my interest in the Civil War.

Of course, slavery must be understood on a global level. That said, why are you surprised that someone would focus on one aspect of it. My main historical interest is that of the United States, in large, part because this is where I make my home. That historians make decisions on a particular time and region should not come as any surprise. I personally find that it takes a great deal of time and effort to come to any serious understand of a subject w/o making those kinds of decisions. You are the one who keeps coming back to the “blame” game. My interest in the history of slavery in this country has absolutely nothing to do with blaming or vindicating anything. History for me is a tool to help to better understand the present and my place in it.

David Brion Davis’s history of world survey is well worth your time if you have not already read it: Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford University Press, 2008): http://www.amazon.com/Inhuman-Bondage-Rise-Slavery-World/dp/0195339444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238940535&sr=8-1

Lastly, unlike Kevin who focuses solely on the South, WHERE I’M STILL SEEKING ANSWERS AS TO WHY, I understand slavery in a global context. Examples include the overwhelming majority of slaves were transported under England’s command, that other nations like Brazil and the Carribean took the vast majority of slaves rather than America, that slavery existed in all regions of America, and that other nations like Brazil again had slavery longer than America did. In light of these truths, I still see an inordinate amount of blame on the Confederacy and the American South for all things slavery. Instead of discussing the issues here, I feel that we are dancing around them many times.

It has to do with intent. My mother’s best friend, who was black, used to refer endearingly to my mother in a phrase that included that word. And I have heard the word used often by the black community in informal conversation as black men and women talked about themselves, to each other, and to my mother and father at our house. On the other hand, a friend of mine who still carries deep scars from the days of integration told me that when she was in history class the teacher, who was a woman, loved to use the word “Negress”. This word is no longer used and should not be. In class, as my friend tried to disappear into that sea of white faces, you can just imagine how she felt as the teacher used the word with ill intent. We, the renegade white and black students, leveled the playing field, though, by calling this teacher “bluebeard”, because of the teacher’s moustache.

As one of your fellow bloggers has noted, Kevin, the renegade South and renegade Southerners of all races have always been here. Glad you could join us. Also, this post, and the post that prompted it, bring up fascinating subjects that deserve attention, in my opinion. For example: how did racism develop differently in the North and the South, and why? How is that connected, or not connected, to the legacy of slavery, and the way in which the Civil War was remembered in both regions? The North was supposed to be the promised land for freed slaves, but it wasn’t. Why? Neither, of course, was the South. But we know why on that one. (Does this really need to be said? Are there actually people who don’t know this?!?) I lived for five years in a major Northern city. I know the North is not the promised land. You do, too, and so do many others. Thanks again for having the courage to post this experience. Racism never stopped at the Mason Dixon line. It had its most brutal expression below it for quite a long time, though. Anyone who says it didn’t is either ill informed or unable to face the facts.

This is so true. It is also the fault line along which racism meets sexism. The key component is the quest for power over another. In fact, many feminist thinkers have suggested that sexism is actually the root “nerve” of racism and classism.