Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Caravan Book) [Hardcover]

Gary W. Gallagher (Author)

Book Description

Series: Caravan Book | Publication Date: April 7, 2008

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, renowned Civil War historian Gary Gallagher guides readers through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how they have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times. Too often these popular portrayals overlook many of the very ideas that motivated the generation that fought the war. The most influential perspective for the Civil War generation, says Gallagher, is almost entirely absent from the Civil War stories being told today.

Gallagher argues that popular understandings of the war have been shaped by four traditions that arose in the nineteenth century and continue to the present: the Lost Cause, in which Confederates are seen as having waged an admirable struggle against hopeless odds; the Union Cause, which frames the war as an effort to maintain a viable republic in the face of secessionist actions; the Emancipation Cause, in which the war is viewed as a struggle to liberate 4 million slaves and eliminate a cancerous influence on American society; and the Reconciliation Cause, which represents attempts by northern and southern whites to extol "American" virtues and mute the role of African Americans.

Gallagher traces an arc of cinematic interpretation from one once dominated by the Lost Cause to one now celebrating Emancipation and, to a lesser degree, Reconciliation. In contrast, the market for art among contemporary Civil War enthusiasts reflects an overwhelming Lost Cause bent. Neither film nor art provides sympathetic representations of the Union Cause, which, Gallagher argues, carried the most weight in the Civil War era.

This lively investigation into what popular entertainment teaches us and what it reflects about us will prompt readers to consider how we form opinions on current matters of debate, such as the use of the military, the freedom of dissent, and the flying of the Confederate flag.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A highly edifying and entertaining look at how popular culture has advanced the primary interpretive traditions by which Americans have sought to ascribe meaning to the Civil War. It reveals that despite the passing of the Civil War generation so long ago, the participants who endured that bloody conflict still define, for better or worse, how we comprehend the past."
-Louisiana History

"[A] highly entertaining analysis of how the Civil War has been treated in popular culture."
-Boston Globe

"An intelligent, readable account of how we look at the American Civil War. . . . Five stars."
-James Durney, Independent Book Reviewer

"Fuses Civil War military and cultural history in a particularly readable and entertaining manner."
-Canadian Journal of History

"In-depth, analytical, and thought-provoking. . . . An important, must read for students of the Civil War."
-Journal of American History

"A welcome addition to the shelf of Civil War books, offering readers a new perspective for thinking about film and art and their own views of the Civil War."
-Minnesota History

"Highly recommended."
-Choice

"Provides insight into how the war is viewed in contemporary American culture. . . . The four interpretive frameworks Gallagher uses for his analysis are instructive for understanding the dominant trends in art and film."
-Southern Historian

"A highly informative, well-illustrated, and wonderfully entertaining book."
-Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Innovative in its approach, provocative in its arguments, and fundamentally interesting, but, most significantly . . . Will drive further discussion of Civil War memory through popular culture."
-West Virginia History

"A very valuable book about the influence of Hollywood and popular art on our images of the Civil War."
-Indiana Magazine of History

"A fascinating, informative book. . . . Highly recommended to students and enthusiasts of the Civil War and for those interested in an examination of misinformation in movies and art."
-NewsOK.com

"Illustrates the continued scholarly interest in the Civil War as a thematic resource for American popular culture."
-Journal of Southern History

"A thoughtful, well-researched, and well-illustrated study that helps readers learn how their understanding of the Civil War has been shaped."
-Journal of America's Military Past

"A short and very readable book that should appeal to anyone with more than a passing interest in the Civil War."
-On Point

"Gallagher's analysis of the ways artists and Hollywood film writers have shaped the changing perceptions of the Civil War and its legacy is thought provoking."
-Courier

"A solidly researched and intriguing exploration of the influence of popular culture on public understanding of the war. Anyone interested in the Civil War and the impact of media on historical understanding will find Gallagher's latest book rewarding on many levels."
-Civil War Times

"This seemingly specialized book in fact has broad appeal."
-Centre Daily Times

"Written with Gallagher's customary clarity and vigor, salted with sardonic humor, and laced with expressions of concern about the darker side of Lost Cause adherents' admiration of Nathan Bedford Forrest and contempt for Abraham Lincoln."
-Virginia Magazine

About the Author

Gary W. Gallagher is John L. Nau III Professor of History at the University of Virginia and author or editor of numerous books, including Lee and His Army in Confederate History and The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition edition (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807832065
• ISBN-13: 978-0807832066
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #580,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How we see the Civil War, April 24, 2008

By 

James W. Durney (Tampa Bay area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

The Civil War is one of the most important events in American history, generating tons of books, magazines, memorials, paintings and statuary. The day the war ended, participants seem to have started books on their experience. Publishing has not stopped and seems to be more active now than 100 years ago. Any large complex event is subject to interpretation. This interpretation creates opportunities for additional interpretations. In time, what happened is subject to various interpretations that are the history of the event. Starting in 1865, the American Civil War was interpreted to fit the needs of groups of people. This created what the author calls the four traditions of our understanding of the war.
Lost Cause; created by Southerners to come to grips with the results of the war.
Union; was what motivated Northerners to fight to maintain one nation.
Emancipation; developed after the war and cast the war as the finial act in the great struggle to end slavery in America.
Reconciliation; is the view that both sides were honorable and fought bravely for deeply held ideals emerging as a stronger united nation. This tradition grew after reconstruction ended and veterans started to establish the National Battle Parks.
Working with these four traditions, the author shows how movies and art portrays them. This can be unsettling. All the more so, if you have seen the movie and viewed the art. The book is similar to looking into a mirror. The reader's tradition(s) can be unsettling as you see their reflection.
The author makes few judgments, trying to be fair to all sides. He has strong feelings about some of the traditions. However, Gallagher refuses to condemn or applauded trends. What we get is an intelligent, very readable account of how we look at the American Civil War.
I have given this book five stars. I am an avid reader of ACW histories and very interested in the traditions on how we view the war. For an avid ACW person less interested in these traditions, this might be a four star book. For those interested in the impact of movies and TV on history, this might be a three star book. This book is an excellent companion to "The Legacy of the Civil War" by Robert Penn Warren. Many of Warren's ideas are supported and expanded on by Gallagher.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Author With A Deliciously Dry Wit, July 17, 2008

By 

Colleen Cupido (Selma, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

This book is one of the most entertaining Civil War books I have ever read, and that includes the hilarious Confederates in the Attic. As a woman going into her last year before getting a BA in History and with plans to go for a graduate degree in the Civil War and American Studies, I am surprised at the dry-as-dust reviews this book has generated so far. All five reviewers pat themselves on the back for explaining the four main interpretations of the Civil War in the media, apparantly without realizing that this information is clearly spelled out in the Product Information section. I am hoping that a person who reads this review will see how much fun this book is. In once instance, the author describes the politically correct view of the Civil War (which he clearly does not agree with) in saying that a better name for The Last Samurai would be Dances With Wolves Goes To Japan. In describing the anti-war, feminist approach Cold Mountain takes, he wonders how such a Confederacy as portrayed in this movie could possibly LAST for four years. And in the begining of the book, in his description of the mini-series North and South, author Gallagher thinks the principle TV direction was probably "A little more over the top, if you please."
Aside from witticisms such as these, Gallagher is a first rate scholar of the Civil War and probes deeply into what the movie going public thinks it knows about the Civil War. The part about Southern feelings about affirmative action and the increasing secularization of America fueling a Lost Cause dominated artwork was particularly rewarding.
For a reader looking for either how popular culture affects what the majority of Americans think about the Civil War, or else just a highly entertaining and thoughtful study of the Civil War as reflected in film, this is a can't-put-it-down volume.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Filtering the past, April 27, 2008

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

Different periods and different constituencies "remember" the past to be what they need it to be, and collective memories especially try to infuse a meaning into past events that are traumatic. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are a number of ways in which the Civil War, surely our single greatest national trauma, has been "remembered" by succeeding generations. In Causes Won, Lost, & Forgotten, Civil War scholar Gary Gallagher focuses on four filters through which we've remembered the Civil War and examines how popular film and art have expressed those memories.

Gallagher argues that the going four interpretive traditions when it comes to the Civil War are the Lost Cause (the Confederate army fought honorably against overwhelming odds), the Union Cause (the war was fought to preserve the American experiment in democracy), the Emancipation Cause (the war was fought to end the egregious injustice of slavery), and the Reconciliation Cause (the war, although tragic, brought together all Americans, northerners and southerners, each of whom had fought honorably). Three of these attempts to read meaning back into the Civil War--the Lost Cause, Union Cause, and Reconciliation--tend either to ignore or to trivialize African Americans.

Gallagher traces the presence of these four interpretations in both film and artwork that have the Civil War as their theme. Early cinema focused almost entirely on the Lost Cause filter, but more recent films move toward Emancipation and Reconciliation. The Union Cause seems not to resonate deeply with viewing audiences, although it was the paramount motivation for northern enthusiasm for the war. Traces of the Union Cause can be found in cinema--Gallagher especially notes its presence in Ron Maxwell's films--but it's certainly not dominant. In fact, post-Vietnam Civil War films tend if anything to portray Federal soldiers and anything smacking of nationalism in a harsh way.

Even as films have backed away from the Lost Cause romantization of the war, popular artwork--prints and statues--remains focused squarely on it. Confederate generals are the rage (with Lee head and shoulders above all others). An especially popular motif combines Christian and Confederate themes: Lee and Jackson praying with a couple of kids on either side of them, or Lee reading the Bible to a child. The Confederate battle flag is a favorite image in the prints, and Bedford Forrest is depicted more often than one would suspect (given his unsavory reputation). Hollywood may feel uncomfortable in touting the Lost Cause (although Maxwell's aesthetically abysmal "Gods and Generals" is an exception). But given the popularity of Lost Cause-themed artwork, it's a safe bet that this memory filter is alive and well.

A fascinating discussion by one of the nation's most respected Civil War scholars. Readers interested in the Civil War in popular memory might also find David Sachsman's Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007) and David Blight's Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) helpful. Gallagher's earlier books and essays on the Lost Cause are also invaluable.