Confederate reckoning : power and politics in the Civil War South / Stephanie McCurry
- Author:
- McCurry, Stephanie
- Published:
- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2010.
- Physical Description:
- 449 pages ; 25 cm
- Contents:
- Prologue: The Confederate project -- Who are the people? -- The brothers' war -- Antigone's claim -- Soldiers' wives and the politics of subsistence -- Women numerous and armed -- "Amor patriae" -- "Our open enemies" -- The fall -- Epilogue: Confederate reckoning.
- Summary:
- "The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners' national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people - white women and slaves - and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise." "Wartime scarcity of food, labor, and soldiers tested the Confederate vision at every point and created domestic crises to match those found on the battlefields. Women and slaves became crucial political actors as they contested government enlistment and tax and welfare policies, and struggled for their freedom. The attempt to repress a majority of its own population backfired on the Confederate State of America as the disenfranchised demanded to be counted and considered in the great struggle. The government was forced to become accountable to women and slaves, provoking an astounding transformation of the slaveholders' state. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject(s):
- Women—Southern States—Social conditions—19th century
- African Americans—Southern States—Social conditions—19th century
- Slavery—Political aspects—Southern States—History—19th century
- Slavery—Social aspects—Southern States—History—19th century
- United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Women
- Confederate States of America—Social conditions
- United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—African Americans
- United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Social aspects
- Confederate States of America—Politics and government
- ISBN:
- 9780674045897 (hc : alk. paper)
0674045890 - Bibliography Note:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Source of Acquisition:
- Hazleton copy: Purchased with funds from the Paterno Libraries Endowment; 2009.
View MARC record | catkey: 5818171