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A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Kentucky History > Item 109
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A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom
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by David Williams and Howard Zinn
Sales Rank: 315387
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List Price: $29.95
$23.96
At Amazon
on 9-14-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 528 pages
Published by: New Press October 7, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 1595580182
ISBN 13 Number: 978-1595580184
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
Weighs: 2.1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
This hefty but readable social history by a confessed disciple of Howard Zinn reframes the Civil War as a conflict not simply between North and South but between the underclass and the power elites—both Confederate and Union. With populist zeal, Williams (Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War) catalogues the influence of the common folk—dissenters, resisters, women, nonslaveholding whites, laborers, African-Americans and Native Americans—locating the conflict's origins in class divisions in the wartime South. Williams illuminates both women's hardships and their shift into new roles (feisty Northern and Southern women became spies and soldiers). For the enlisted or conscripted common man, conditions were a far cry from those of the affluent brass, and the author emphasizes the actions of draft evaders and deserters (draft riots swept Northern cities in the summer of 1863). He details the role of resisting blacks who fought for their own freedom while Lincoln demonstrated an "ambiguous attitude towards" them. For Native Americans, Williams writes, the era marked their continued dispossession. Though Williams flattens history through a materialist lens, this account sheds fascinating light on neglected aspects of the period and will make a worthwhile companion volume to military histories. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
This is really not a history of the Civil War but, rather, a litany of the economic and social injustices of mid-nineteenth-century America, followed by a recounting of some of the efforts to resist those injustices. Williams sheds interesting light on aspects of the Civil War era that are often given scant attention in more conventional histories. He shows the spirit and surprising strength of anti-secessionist movements in the South and explores, in depth, the resentment of many Southern soldiers and civilians over what they perceived as a "rich man's war, poor man's fight." Unfortunately, Williams'populist agenda leads him to frequent exaggerations, distortions, and constant utilizations of vague generalities. For instance, he repeatedly blames North and South "elites" for the war while failing to acknowledge that abolitionist sentiments generally sprang from those of the middle and upper classes. This work has value as an alternative view of the era. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
Despite being recounted innumerable times in print, the Civil War is often examined in very narrow terms, usually involving the decisions of commanders and the movement of units on the battlefield. David Williams's book is much different. In chapter-length accounts, Williams looks at the how the war impacted the lives of men and women on the home front, draftees, African Americans and Native Americans - groups often neglected in traditional accounts of the war. Such a focus brings a refreshing perspective to a well-worn subject. The war depicted in these pages is a much more complex one than in previous books; class tension fuels resentment towards the conflict, while the South struggles to cope with unionist sentiment that is overlooked in many accounts. Though Williams's continual resort to class as the paradigm for evaluating events wears over the course of the book (the "rich man's war" line got a little old after awhile), his conclusions - backed by a solid command of Civil War historiography - are impossible to ignore. The result is a valuable corrective of the standard "guns and generals" account of the Civil War, one that should be required reading for any student of the conflict.
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A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom
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Price: $23.96
Updated on 9-14-2008.
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