Download or read book The Myth of the Lost Cause written by Edward H. Bonekemper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History isn't always written by the winners... Twenty-first-century controversies over Confederate monuments attest to the enduring significance of our nineteenth-century Civil War. As Lincoln knew, the meaning of America itself depends on how we understand that fratricidal struggle. As soon as the Army of Northern Virginia laid down its arms at Appomattox, a group of Confederate officers took up their pens to refight the war for the history books. They composed a new narrative—the Myth of the Lost Cause—seeking to ennoble the sacrifice and defeat of the South, which popular historians in the twentieth century would perpetuate. Unfortunately, that myth would distort the historical imagination of Americans, north and south, for 150 years. In this balanced and compelling correction of the historical record, Edward Bonekemper helps us understand the Myth of the Lost Cause and its effect on the social and political controversies that are still important to all Americans.

Download or read book The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-22 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “well-reasoned and timely” (Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography. Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states’ rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself. Unfortunately, skillful propagandists have been so successful in promoting this romanticized view that the Lost Cause has assumed a life of its own. Misrepresenting the war’s true origins and its actual course, the myth of the Lost Cause distorts our national memory. In The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, nine historians describe and analyze the Lost Cause, identifying ways in which it falsifies history—creating a volume that makes a significant contribution to Civil War historiography. “The Lost Cause . . . is a tangible and influential phenomenon in American culture and this book provides an excellent source for anyone seeking to explore its various dimensions.” —Southern Historian

Download or read book Lost Star of Myth and Time written by Walter Cruttenden and published by St. Lynn's Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Baptized in Blood written by Charles Reagan Wilson and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Reagan Wilson documents that for over half a century there existed not one, but two civil religions in the United States, the second not dedicated to honoring the American nation. Extensively researched in primary sources, Baptized in Blood is a significant and well-written study of the South’s civil religion, one of two public faiths in America. In his comparison, Wilson finds the Lost Cause offered defeated Southerners a sense of meaning and purpose and special identity as a precarious but distinct culture. Southerners may have abandoned their dream of a separate political nation after Appomattox, but they preserved their cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric and symbols with the rhetoric and imagery of Confederate tradition. “Civil religion” has been defined as the religious dimension of a people that enables them to understand a historical experience in transcendent terms. In this light, Wilson explores the role of religion in postbellum southern culture and argues that the profound dislocations of Confederate defeat caused southerners to think in religious terms about the meaning of their unique and tragic experience. The defeat in a war deemed by some as religious in nature threw into question the South’s relationship to God; it was interpreted in part as a God-given trial, whereby suffering and pain would lead Southerners to greater virtue and strength and even prepare them for future crusades. From this reflection upon history emerged the civil religion of the Lost Cause. While recent work in southern religious history has focused on the Old South period, Wilson’s timely study adds to our developing understanding of the South after the Civil War. The Lost Cause movement was an organized effort to preserve the memory of the Confederacy. Historians have examined its political, literary, and social aspects, but Wilson uses the concepts of anthropology, sociology, and historiography to unveil the Lost Cause as an authentic expression of religion. The Lost Cause was celebrated and perpetuated with its own rituals, mythology, and theology; as key celebrants of the religion of the Lost Cause, Southern ministers forged it into a religious movement closely related to their own churches. In examining the role of civil religion in the cult of the military, in the New South ideology, and in the spirit of the Lost Cause colleges, as well as in other aspects, Wilson demonstrates effectively how the religion of the Lost Cause became the institutional embodiment of the South’s tragic experience.

Download or read book The Mound Builder Myth written by Jason Colavito and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Say you found that a few dozen people, operating at the highest levels of society, conspired to create a false ancient history of the American continent to promote a religious, white-supremacist agenda in the service of supposedly patriotic ideals. Would you call it fake news? In nineteenth-century America, this was in fact a powerful truth that shaped Manifest Destiny. The Mound Builder Myth is the first book to chronicle the attempt to recast the Native American burial mounds as the work of a lost white race of “true” native Americans. Thomas Jefferson’s pioneering archaeology concluded that the earthen mounds were the work of Native Americans. In the 1894 report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Cyrus Thomas concurred, drawing on two decades of research. But in the century in between, the lie took hold, with Presidents Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Abraham Lincoln adding their approval and the Mormon Church among those benefiting. Jason Colavito traces this monumental deception from the farthest reaches of the frontier to the halls of Congress, mapping a century-long conspiracy to fabricate and promote a false ancient history—and enumerating its devastating consequences for contemporary Native people. Built upon primary sources and first-person accounts, the story that The Mound Builder Myth tells is a forgotten chapter of American history—but one that reads like the Da Vinci Code as it plays out at the upper reaches of government, religion, and science. And as far-fetched as it now might seem that a lost white race once ruled prehistoric America, the damage done by this “ancient” myth has clear echoes in today’s arguments over white nationalism, multiculturalism, “alternative facts,” and the role of science and the control of knowledge in public life.

Download or read book Why the Confederacy Lost written by Gabor S. Boritt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-10-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Civil War, someone asked General Pickett why the Battle of Gettysburg had been lost: Was it Lee's error in taking the offensive, the tardiness of Ewell and Early, or Longstreet's hesitation in attacking? Pickett scratched his head and replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it." This simple fact, writes James McPherson, has escaped a generation of historians who have looked to faulty morale, population, economics, and dissent as the causes of Confederate failure. These were all factors, he writes, but the Civil War was still a war--won by the Union army through key victories at key moments. With this brilliant review of how historians have explained the Southern defeat, McPherson opens a fascinating account by several leading historians of how the Union broke the Confederate rebellion. In every chapter, the military struggle takes center stage, as the authors reveal how battlefield decisions shaped the very forces that many scholars (putting the cart before the horse) claim determined the outcome of the war. Archer Jones examines the strategy of the two sides, showing how each had to match its military planning to political necessity. Lee raided north of the Potomac with one eye on European recognition and the other on Northern public opinion--but his inevitable retreats looked like failure to the Southern public. The North, however, developed a strategy of deep raids that was extremely effective because it served a valuable political as well as military purpose, shattering Southern morale by tearing up the interior. Gary Gallagher takes a hard look at the role of generals, narrowing his focus to the crucial triumvirate of Lee, Grant, and Sherman, who towered above the others. Lee's aggressiveness may have been costly, but he well knew the political impact of his spectacular victories; Grant and Sherman, meanwhile, were the first Union generals to fully harness Northern resources and carry out coordinated campaigns. Reid Mitchell shows how the Union's advantage in numbers was enhanced by a dedication and perseverance of federal troops that was not matched by the Confederates after their home front began to collapse. And Joseph Glatthaar examines black troops, whose role is entering the realm of national myth. In 1960, there appeared a collection of essays by major historians, entitled Why the North Won the Civil War, edited by David Donald; it is now in its twenty-sixth printing, having sold well over 100,000 copies. Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leading authorities. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.

Download or read book Causes Won Lost and Forgotten written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war--why it was fought, what was won, what was lost--not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. In an engaging and accessible survey, Gary W. Gallagher guides readers through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how these stories have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times.

Download or read book The Lost Tide Warriors written by Catherine Doyle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fans of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson can add Fionn Boyle as a generous and brave hero from the Emerald Isle.” – School Library Connection on The Storm Keeper's Island There is magic deep within Arranmore Island, and Fionn Boyle is beginning to discover how it has woven its way through generations of his family's history. But Arranmore is in trouble; evil sorceress Morrigan's soul stalkers have returned, giving rise to widespread fear and suspicion. Fionn wants to help, but the Storm Keeper magic passed down from his grandfather seems to have deserted him. Fionn sets out to summon the merrows, a vast army of sea creatures who may be his only chance. But how can he find them without the faintest idea of where to look? The battle to save Arranmore has begun. This gorgeously written, magical tale of family, bravery, and self-discovery is perfect for fans of Orphan Island and A Snicker of Magic.

Download or read book White Vanishing written by Elspeth Tilley and published by Brill. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the vulnerable white person vanishing without trace into the harsh Australian landscape is a potent and compelling element in multiple genres of mainstream Australian culture. It has been sung in “Little Boy Lost,” brought to life on the big screen in Picnic at Hanging Rock, immortalized in Henry Lawson’s poems of lost tramps, and preserved in the history books’ tales of Leichhardt or Burke and Wills wandering in mad circles. A world-wide audience has also witnessed the many-layered and oddly strident nature of Australian disappearance symbolism in media coverage of contemporary disappearances, such as those of Azaria Chamberlain and Peter Falconio. White Vanishing offers a revealing and challenging re-examination of Australian disappearance mythology, exposing the political utility at its core. Drawing on wide-ranging examples of the white-vanishing myth, the book provides evidence that disappearance mythology encapsulates some of the most dominant and durable categories at the heart of white Australian culture, and that many of those ideas have their origin in colonial mechanisms of inequality and oppression. White Vanishing deliberately (and perhaps controversially) reminds readers that, while power is never absolute or irresistible, some narrative threads carry a particularly authoritative inheritance of ideas and power-relations through time.

Download or read book Lost Children Archive written by Valeria Luiselli and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “An epic road trip [that also] captures the unruly intimacies of marriage and parenthood ... This is a novel that daylights our common humanity, and challenges us to reconcile our differences.” —The Washington Post In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way. A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.

Download or read book Myth O Mania Get Lost Odysseus written by Kate McMullan and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trojan War is over, but now Odysseus has to find his way home to Ithaca . . . and in typical fashion, he's angered Poseidon enough that the sea-god has decided to make his journey miserable (if not impossible).

Download or read book The Book of Lost Things written by John Connolly and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.

Download or read book Ghosts of the Confederacy written by Gaines M. Foster and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1987-04-23 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Lee and Grant met at Appomatox Court House in 1865 to sign the document ending the long and bloody Civil War, the South at last had to face defeat as the dream of a Confederate nation melted into the Lost Cause. Through an examination of memoirs, personal papers, and postwar Confederate rituals such as memorial day observances, monument unveilings, and veterans' reunions, Ghosts of the Confederacy probes into how white southerners adjusted to and interpreted their defeat and explores the cultural implications of a central event in American history. Foster argues that, contrary to southern folklore, southerners actually accepted their loss, rapidly embraced both reunion and a New South, and helped to foster sectional reconciliation and an emerging social order. He traces southerners' fascination with the Lost Cause--showing that it was rooted as much in social tensions resulting from rapid change as it was in the legacy of defeat--and demonstrates that the public celebration of the war helped to make the South a deferential and conservative society. Although the ghosts of the Confederacy still haunted the New South, Foster concludes that they did little to shape behavior in it--white southerners, in celebrating the war, ultimately trivialized its memory, reduced its cultural power, and failed to derive any special wisdom from defeat.

Download or read book The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel written by Andrew Tobolowsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-17 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel is the first study to treat the history of claims to an Israelite identity as an ongoing historical phenomenon from biblical times to the present. By treating the Hebrew Bible's accounts of Israel as one of many efforts to construct an Israelite history, rather than source material for later legends, Andrew Tobolowsky brings a long-term comparative approach to biblical and nonbiblical “Israelite” histories. In the process, he sheds new light on how the structure of the twelve tribes tradition enables the creation of so many different visions of Israel, and generates new questions: How can we explain the enduring power of the myth of the twelve tribes of Israel? How does “becoming Israel” work, why has it proven so popular, and how did it change over time? Finally, what can the changing shape of Israel itself reveal about those who claimed it?

Download or read book Jubal A Early the Lost Cause and Civil War History written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Letters from Beyond the Sambatyon written by Simcha Shtull-Trauring and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Outside the Magic Circle written by Virginia Foster Durr and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 1990-06-30 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1986 Alabama Library Author Award, Outside the Magic Circle tells the remarkable story of Virginia Foster Durr, a southern white woman born into privilige who (along with her husband Clifford Durr, a lawyer best known for defending Rosa Parks), nonetheless devoted her life to Civil Rights activism. "Outside the Magic Circle is a valuable document...engaging, warm, and shrewd. [Durr's] odyssey of political commitment belongs in the collective biography of a remarkable generation of Southern liberals and radicals." --Southern Exposure