The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America [Paperback]

Wyn Craig Wade (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195123573 | ISBN-13: 978-0195123579 | Publication Date: November 19, 1998

Few groups in our history are as fascinating and mysterious as the Ku Klux Klan. Its story is one of violence, political manipulation and intrigue, absurdity, and mesmerizing organizational and propaganda skills. Through shrewd political tactics and powerful leadership, the Klan has often been a potent force, as it encouraged Americans to protect themselves from those they find "unacceptable." Its actions have made it one of the most feared groups in America.
In The Fiery Cross, Wyn Craig Wade traces the Klan from its beginnings after the Civil War as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, to the present. Wade provides us with the history of the group, which has gone through a number of declines and renaissances over the last hundred years. We follow the Klan's resurgence in 1915 after D.W. Griffith's epic film The Birth of a Nation depicted Klan members as heroic saviors of the old Southern society, to the swearing in of President Warren G. Harding as a Klansman in the Green Room, and from the Klan's championing of white supremacy as a response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, to their present day activities, aligning themselves with a variety of neo-fascist and right-wing groups in the American West. Finally, Wade provides us with an assessment of the Klan's future.
The Fiery Cross provides an exhaustive analysis and perspective on this dark shadow of American society. It is long overdue.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This doggedly researched history of the American racist group is bloated with cliches, overstatements, colloquialisms, sensationalistic accounts of sexual atrocities and nonsensical connections (a detailed description of Grant's second inaugural ball that took place in an unheated building is followed by the observation that "over the next four years, the Republican ardor for civil rights would cool"). Wade's historical insights are often inane, as when he discusses Grant's suspension of habeas corpus in implementing the Ku-Klux Act: "Although it must be admitted that martial law is never pleasant, the effects of military occupation in South Carolina were far less dreadful than the picture anti-Reconstruction historians would popularize." And his psychological analyses are ludicrous: "Klan attacks on scalawags often involved some kind of sexual abuse. . . . as if the behavior of the scalawags represented a form of infidelity to the South, and Klansmen gladly assumed the role of vengeful spouses." Wade is the author of The Titanic: End of a Dream. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Wade's journalistic approach brings alive the hydra-headed Klan: from its 19th-century Southern origins; to its 20th-century celebration in film; to its 1915-20s national emergence as a small-town, rural mix of narrow-mindedness, prejudice, and violence against blacks, Catholics, and Jews; to its increasingly anti-Communist poses since the New Deal; to its most recent incarnation in such varied and conflicting types as the "intellectual" David Duke and the paramilitary Bill Wilkinson. Although more descriptive than analytical, Wade's book shows how the Klan has assumed various guises over time, and how recent groups have lapsed back into the anarchy that prevailed in the KKK's infancy. Wade discovers the Klan as a singularly American beast, created by the very democratic ideals it mocks and inverts. Recommended for public and university libraries.Randall M. Miller, History Dept., St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195123573
• ISBN-13: 978-0195123579
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not great, but not bad either, June 10, 2003

By 

J. Weaver "black_lodge_books" (FLA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (Paperback)

I believe that the other reviewers are being a little harsh. I have surveyed a good deal of the Klan literature, and found this book actually "fairly" good in comparison. Do I think that it is unbiased or totally accurate? - NO. But it is better than most current academic research, which when dealing with a topic such as this goes out of its way to condemn the Klan. From the standpoint of organizational history, this book is the best that I have come across. Wade's social analysis is suspect however. I do recommend it however, for anyone interested in the internal power struggles and organizational history of the Klan. The Klan literature which Wade includes is also fascinating.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Kluxing of America, February 24, 2003

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (Paperback)

In this book Wyn Wade has given us a very good overview but not an extremely detailed look at the Ku Klux Klan. That is not to say that he has not done his research for he has found lots of material. The simple fact is that a book of this length cannot possibly cover the subject in any great depth. That would require a book at least twice this long, and probably three times as long. This book was obviously not intended to be a Shelby Foote type narrative of the Klan, but the basic survey that it is.

Wade has done a good job with the post reconstruction Klan, but he tends to take revisionist history a bit too far. One thing that puzzles me is that he refers to Tennessee as the, "the only border state" that left the Union. Many historians refer to the Volunteer State as a border state even though it was surrounded by slave states on all sides, so I can let that part of the statement slide. I have never however heard of Tennessee referred to as a border state without at least Virginia and Arkansas also receiving that label. It's not a big thing I realize, but it did bug me.

After reconstruction, Wade takes the reader to the history of D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation", the movie that made the rebirth and rise of the post World War I Klan possible. Then he traces the new Klan through its phenomenal growth to its demise. Wade then moves on to the Cold War anti-Communist Klan, the Civil Rights era Klan, the David Duke Klan, and today's Aryan crowd. He does a fine job of bringing out the personalities of various Klan leaders and giving the lowdown on various politicians who, while not Klansmen themselves, were more than happy to court Klan support. He also does an outstanding job of telling the story of Klan violence, with special attention to the victims.

Wade ends this fascinating book with the story of the groups that have been organized to oppose the Klan and the FBI campaign that brought the Klan to its knees. Finally, Wade warns the reader that the Klan is still out there and should never be pronounced dead. The Klan has proven its resilience again and again he warns and his excellent book will give the reader many reasons to be wary of the men behind the masks.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Klan Book That Makes Sense, November 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (Paperback)

The Fiery Cross is the best one-volume history of the Ku Klux Klan I have read. I have always had a hard time accepting the claims of the academics that historically, Klan membership in America was a civic-minded, even virtuous impulse on the part of ordinary citizens. (How the academics manage to say this in view of the Klan's anti-ethnic activities has always stumped me.) Wyn Craig Wade reveals the historic KKK in all its aberrant glory. Of special interest, I believe, is his chapter on the KKK's triumph in Indiana during the 1920s. It seems anomalous that this landlocked midwestern Hoosier empire, rather than some southern state, was the KKK's major stronghold during the decade it reached its greatest national prominence. Wade explains how KKK organizers skillfully exploited Indiana's penchants for organized religion, joining clubs, and arrogance. At one point, thousands of people accepted as true a rumor that the Pope was going to relocate the Vatican to Indiana. Why? Simply because Indiana was the most desirable real estate on earth.