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Paul D. Escott is Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest University and the author of numerous books, including Lincoln's Dilemma; Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era.

Værker af Paul D. Escott

The South for New Southerners (1991) 22 eksemplarer

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The Routledge History of Nineteenth-century America (2018) — Bidragyder, nogle udgaver5 eksemplarer

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This is a book of essays that deals with the decades of the 1860s and 1870s in North Carolina. As with most essay collections, some topics are treated and others omitted. The essays do a good job with dealing with the politics of the time and with the changes that came for blacks and for women in the era. They don't deal with what life was like for the typical white family during that time period. As a genealogist, I found some of the essays dealing with changes in the laws over the period, particularly for blacks and for women, to be quite good. The essay that told of changes in laws regarding divorces was also useful. All essays are well-documented, using many documents contemporary to the time period. Western North Carolinians are not as well-represented in most of the essays as are persons from other regions. I received this book to review for Tennessee Libraries. A fuller review will appear in a future issue of that publication.… (mere)
 
Markeret
thornton37814 | Jun 28, 2009 |
Reviewed March 2007

Remarkably well detailed look at why the South did not win the support of its people and win the Civil War. Escott offers various reasons for this as well as an analysis of Davis as the Confederate President. Because the foundation of the Southern argument was to be allowed to continue enslaving a large portion of its residents they cried for States Rights! But in order to win a war over a more powerful North the Confederacy needed to create a strong central Federal Govt from scratch. Also power had to be taken from the states so they could begin to work together for the war effort. This did not happen. Governors continued to fight against Davis, not giving men or recourses, not giving him power over railroads. Davis was strongly criticized and his wishes questioned mainly because the South lacked political parties to rally from or against. The South was only Democrat. Davis had the intelligence and desire to form a permanent government, but the rich plantation owners wanted everything to remain the same, and this was not possible if they wanted to win. One of the biggest problems was that the solider was the non slave-holder. Davis had to convince them that Southern independence was worth their lives. Davis used the argument that the North wanted to make Black men their equals, allow them to marry their daughters and take the white man’s jobs. This argument worked for awhile, but the yoeman farmer began to realize that the rich were not suffering, or serving in the military, but continuing their normal lifestyles while the soldiers families were starving. Laws mostly favored the wealthy (p. 269)and gave little support to the starving. (p. 271) People gave up on the war long before it was over, Davis could not hole the people together and create Southern Nationalism (p. 272). Southerners were used to being independent separate from their govt, only relying on locals to meet their needs. Once the war began they had to ask govt for help with changed how the south viewed their govt. (p. 135) People did not in droves go over to the Northern side, mostly they fought against their govt by not joining up - or deserting - or not supplying food or support to the Confederacy (p. 104). In the later years Davis changed tactics and insisted the North were devils, not humans, very violent...by this time people had already given up and this tactic did not work very well. 5-2007… (mere)
 
Markeret
sgerbic | May 8, 2008 |
There are quite a few fascinating primary source documents in this text. However, they are not enough to make up for some of the more dry, uninteresting documents and essays that appear over and over again. As a graduating historian, I appreciate documents and essays by other historians, but the editors of this book seem to have neglected to include some of the more famous and educational reads coming out of the south before the Civil War. Once the book happens upon slavery and the run-up to the war itself, it becomes much more interesting, but until then, it seems that they were quite content with taking whatever bits of dry content they could find and piecing them together haphazardly to form the first half of the text. Like I said, there are some real gems within this book, but one must look very closely for them, and put up with a lot of fluff and bother in the meantime.… (mere)
½
 
Markeret
jfslone | Apr 14, 2008 |
An excellent examination of the yeoman class and its effect on politics and the Civil War.
 
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samfsmith | Feb 24, 2008 |

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