Earlier this week I received my author copies of the latest issue of The Civil War Monitor, which contains my essay on Confederate camp servants. As I’ve said before, I am very excited about this particular piece. It encompasses some of what I am trying to address in the first chapter of my book on [...]
Slavery
Harvard University Press was kind enough to send me a review copy of Walter Johnson’s new book, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. I am only beginning to make my through it, but I am very enthusiastic given how much I enjoyed Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave [...]
Update: I didn’t see this one coming, but it is nice to see the SCV and NAACP working together in opposition to the Klan’s planned rally in Memphis next month. Millar shows that he should have been included in the city’s panel to re-name Forrest Park. Pastor Norman is quite impressive in his own right. [...]
Those of you living in the Richmond area will find this documentary to be particularly interesting. In 1993 the city organized Healing the Heart of America, which among other things included a walk through Richmond in an attempt to address lingering tensions over slavery, race, and history. Some of the interviews are quite interesting. You [...]
This week I am going to write an essay for my column at the Atlantic on the recent controversy surrounding the renaming of Forrest Park in Memphis, Tennessee. Court Carney’s 2001 JSH essay on Forrest and historical memory has been incredibly helpful in placing this most recent incident within a much broader context. I highly [...]
Congratulations to James Oakes, 2013 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize winner for Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. It was also pleased to see that the finalists included books by Yael Sternhell and Stephen Kantrowitz. Both finalists made my “Best of 2012“. All three are must reads. Below is a very [...]
I am in the home stretch with Bruce Levine’s wonderful new book, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South. It’s extremely well written and is an excellent introduction to the story of the Confederacy and the central role that slavery played in its ultimate [...]
It comes down to this: Southern heritage advocates are their own worst enemies. We can see this clearly at work in last night’s decision on the part of the Memphis City Council to change the names of three parks named in honor of the Confederacy. Forrest Park is at center stage. In an interview with [...]