In the process of reviewing the final edits for my Crater book I’ve had to go through research files that have not been touched in a couple of years. Today I read through a bunch of editorials concerning the 1937 Crater re-enactment in Petersburg, which the National Park Service used to mark the inclusion of [...]
Civil War Sesquicentennial
After Virginia no other state has done more to commemorate the American Civil War than North Carolina. Their state commission has done an excellent job thus far of organizing activities that reflect an incredibly rich and complex past. They are doing their very best to make the war relevant to the state’s diverse population by [...]
It’s been interesting to watch the comments section at The Atlantic evolve in response to my most recent post. I have no moderating power so it is just a matter of sitting back and watching individuals talk past one another in their typical self-absorbed fashion. That said, some of the comments are worth a bit [...]
Last month I gave a talk to the Rhode Island Civil War Round Table in which I offered an assessment of the first full year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial celebrations and commemoration. I decided to work on it a bit more and I am pleased to share it with you in The Atlantic. It [...]
It’s nice to see that Ta-Nahesi Coates’s contribution to the The Atlantic’s special Civil War issue is getting so much attention. It nicely sums up why I am now a regular reader of his blog and why last week I went to meet him in person at MIT. Coates’s essay is a very personal and [...]
Joyce Ehrlinger, E. Ashby Plant, Richard P. Eibach, Corey J. Columb, Joanna L. Goplen, Jonathan W. Kunstman, David A. Butz, “How Exposure to the Confederate Flag Affects Willingness to Vote for Barack Obama,” Political Pyschology (February 2011): 131-46. Abstract: Leading up to the 2008 U.S. election, pundits wondered whether Whites, particularly in Southern states, were [...]
Fifty years ago Americans emerged from the Civil War Centennial with a collective narrative that fit neatly into a pervasive Cold War culture. Though slightly bloodied and bruised this narrative retained strong Lost Cause and reconciliationist themes even as the civil rights movement reminded the nation on a daily basis of the war’s “unfinished business”. [...]
Anyone remotely interested in the Civil War Sesquicentennial can’t help but stand in awe of the work the Virginia commission has done to bring the war to the people of Virginia and the rest of the country. Right now a flatbed truck carrying a Civil War exhibit is traveling around the state and plans to [...]
