American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era
A history book that rereads the Civil War and civil rights era together, showing how emancipation, memory, and national mythology are intertwined.
Work Information
It reassembles national myth from the history of emancipation.
Published by the Belknap Press, David W. Blight’s book traces how Civil War memory was reinterpreted in the civil rights era. It is a study of the relationship between historical memory and political use.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Belknap Press
- Published
- 2011-09-26
- Pages
- 328 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.88 x 3.18 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780674048553
- ISBN-10
- 9780674048553
- Price
- 14546 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/History/Americas/United States/19th Century
Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, a century after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared, “One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.” He delivered this speech just three years after the Virginia Civil War Commission published a guide proclaiming that “the Centennial is no time for finding fault or placing blame or fighting the issues all over again.” David Blight takes his readers back to the centennial celebration to determine how Americans then made sense of the suffering, loss, and liberation that had wracked the United States a century earlier. Amid cold war politics and civil rights protest, four of America’s most incisive writers explored the gulf between remembrance and reality. Robert Penn Warren, the southern-reared poet-novelist who recanted his support of segregation; Bruce Catton, the journalist and U.S. Navy officer who became a popular Civil War historian; Edmund Wilson, the century’s preeminent literary critic; and James Baldwin, the searing African-American essayist and activist—each exposed America’s triumphalist memory of the war. And each, in his own way, demanded a reckoning with the tragic consequences it spawned. Blight illuminates not only mid-twentieth-century America’s sense of itself but also the dynamic, ever-changing nature of Civil War memory. On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the war, we have an invaluable perspective on how this conflict continues to shape the country’s political debates, national identity, and sense of purpose.
David W. Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University.
Reviews
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This is a jewel of a book by a very perceptive historian. It is a quick but rich read. Blight's treatment of how four leading authors of the 1960s, Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson and James Baldwin responded to the Civil War Centennial in the context of the Civil Rights struggle is full of insights. All of the essays are excellent but I particularly liked his treatment of Robert Penn Warren, an author I did not know very well. Blight is very sensitive to Warren's honesty and openness in his efforts to understand the legacy of slavery and the Civil War. This book stands alone but it should be read in tandem with Blight's earlier study, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.
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Intelligent and engaging, Blight builds a holistic context for beginning to consider how the Civil War fits into America’s 400-year history of white supremacy.
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The national memory of the Civil War has always been an interest of mine and David Blight has been an author I've found who shares that interest, This book, like his others, is masterfully told and I read it within a few days, making abundant notes and highlights throughout. My wife says she can judge how much I liked a book by how heavily it's highlighted after I finish. This one is loaded. An entertaining and educational look at the memory of the CW as seen by four literary "giants", with their views analysed, dissected, and clarified by Blight. I loved it!
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This is a thoughtful and ingenious book, playing off the Civil War against its re-imagining a century later, when racial injustice could no longer be so easily ignored, and thus posing the riddle of what the War had been about. James Baldwin doesn't belong in this book, since he wrote virtually nothing about the War (or even slavery or Emancipation); but the chapters on Robert Penn Warren and Edmund Wilson are incisive; and the chapter on Bruce Catton is genuinely illuminating.
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Many sellers rate their products better than what they really are. This one didn't and the "good" product I bought for an excellent price exceeds my expectations. I'll buy from this seller again!