Update: I’ve sold two copies of the book in the past hour. I guess there is no such thing as a negative review. I have to say that I really thought my book’s Amazon page was going to be flooded with negative reviews from day one of publication. I even spent some time strategizing over [...]
Civil War Historians
There doesn’t seem to be any let up in the number and range of Civil War memory studies published or soon to be published this year. As someone who has contributed to this body of scholarship you might expect that this brings a smile to my face and you would be correct. That said, I [...]
On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville and we are already being subjected to a steady stream of interpretive flights of fancy surrounding the significance of Stonewall Jackson’s death. Although it was not evident at the time, some historians believe Jackson’s death began the ruin of the Confederacy. The Southern [...]
I finally had a chance to watch the panel on USCTs that I moderated at Gettysburg College last month. C-SPAN aired it this weekend. I think the discussion went better than what I remembered, though I still get the sense of a subtle or perhaps no so subtle divide among the panelists between a detached [...]
First things first. Thanks to all of you who emailed yesterday to share your concerns about our safety in light of the attacks that took place here in Boston. My wife and I have lived in Boston for close to two years. After watching the response of our community to yesterday’s tragic events, I can [...]
There is a danger when we remember or imagine the past that we treat historical actors as static or stuck in a particular moment as opposed to dynamic and forward looking. We make an implicit assumption that since we are preoccupied with a particular historical moment that the individuals were as well. The recent history [...]
Linda Barnickel, Milliken’s Bend: A Civil War Battle in History and Memory, (Louisiana State University Press, 2013). Earl J. Hess, Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign, (University of North Carolina Press, 2013). William A. Link, Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s Aftermath, (University of North Carolina [...]
In between the final day’s sessions yesterday at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Megan Kate Nelson and I met over lunch and cocktails to talk a little business. Over the next few months we will be co-editing a special issue of Common-place on the Civil War Sesquicentennial and Civil War memory. The issue is slated for [...]