Full Description
The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020 reignited a passionate nationwide debate over Confederate memorials and flags as symbols of white supremacy in our public landscape. Controversies about Confederate monuments, however, have overshadowed more consequential battles over Civil War memory taking place in American politics, popular culture, and civil society today.
Integrating the voices of Civil War historians, public historians, and scholars of contemporary America, They Are Dead and Yet They Live explores the use (and abuse) of Civil War memory in the modern era, from the Civil War Centennial and the civil rights era through the political turmoil of the present day. Moving the conversation of Civil War memory beyond Confederate monuments to crucial debates about the Civil War's usefulness as a frame for understanding America's recent struggles, these essays show how Civil War memory is as politically urgent and socially relevant today as it was a half century ago.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Governor and the Palmetto Patriots
John M. Kinder and Jennifer M. Murray
Part 1. Lost Causes
1. To Understand Where You Are Going, Remember Where You Have Been: Reconstruction's Reverberations in Twenty-First-Century America
Brooks D. Simpson
2. The Republican Party, the Lost Cause, and the Transformation of American Politics
Tim Galsworthy
Part 2. Reclamation Projects
3. The Politics of Civil War Memory in America's Military: The Battles to Rename Nine U.S. Army Bases
Jennifer M. Murray
4. Freedom on the Fringes: Interpreting the Civil War and Relevancy at Camp Nelson
Steve T. Phan
5. Ghosts of Atchison: The Lynching of George Johnson
Joshua Wolf
Part 3. Consuming Memory
6. Confederates in the Record Cabinet: Civil War Memory and the Historical Turns in Modern Country Music
Joseph M. Thompson
7. Love Is a Battlefield: Civil War Memory in Modern Romance Novels
Sarah Handley-Cousins
8. Dixie Chic: Hoodies and Embodying Confederate Exceptionalism
Nicole Maurantonio
Part 4. Civil War Memory in the Age of Black Lives Matter
9. "This Battle Was Fought Because Black Lives Matter": How Black Lives Are (or Aren't) Remembered at Gettysburg
Scott Hancock
10. The Black Confederate Myth and Civil War Memory in the Trump Era
Kevin M. Levin
Part 5. The Next Civil War
11. The Confederate Battle Flag's Symbolic Shorthand: Appropriation, Dissemination, and Proliferation by U.S.-Based White Supremacists in Post-Civil War America
Brett A. Barnett
12. Dylann Roof's Civil Wars
John M. Kinder
Epilogue: "Wow, That Was a Big Mistake"
Jennifer M. Murray and John M. Kinder
Timeline of Key Events from the Civil War Centennial to 2025
Contributors
Index
