Inside The Confederate Nation: Essays In Honor Of Emory M. Thomas (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War Series) [Hardcover]

Lesley J. Gordon (Author), John C. Inscoe (Author)

Book Description

Series: Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War Series | Publication Date: November 2005

In The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience (1970) and The Confederate Nation (1979), Emory Thomas redefined the field of Civil War history and reconceptualized the Confederacy as a unique entity fighting a war for survival. Today scholars continue to build on Thomas’s work. Inside the Confederate Nation honors his enormous contributions to the field with fresh interpretations of all aspects of Confederate life—nationalism and identity, family and gender, battlefront and homefront, race, and postwar legacies and memories.

Many of the volume’s twenty essays focus on individuals, households, communities, and particular regions of the South, highlighting the sheer variety of circumstances southerners faced over the course of the war. Other chapters explore the public and private dilemmas faced by diplomats, policy makers, journalists, and soldiers within the new nation. All of the essays attempt to explain the place of southerners within the Confederacy, how they came to see themselves and others differently because of the new nation, and the disparities between their expectations and reality.

Contributors include James M. McPherson, William C. Davis, Joseph T. Glatthaar, William S. McFeely, Nina Silber, Jean E. Friedman, John C. Inscoe, Clarence L. Mohr, Thomas G. Dyer, Lesley J. Gordon, Brian S. Wills, Russell Duncan, Jennifer Lund Smith, David H. MgGee, Frank J. Byrne, Keith S. Bohannon, Rod Andrew Jr., Christopher Phillips, Jennifer Lynn Gross, Philip D. Dillard, and Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein. This exciting new collection continues the interpretive debates Thomas’s work first inspired thirty-five years ago, affirming his lasting influence on Civil War history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lesley J. Gordon is an associate professor of history at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. She is the author of General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend, coeditor of Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives, and coauthor of This Terrible War: The Civil War and Its Aftermath.

John C. Inscoe is the author, editor, or coeditor of eight books, including The Heart of Confederate Appalachia; Enemies of the Country: New Perspectives on Unionists in the Civil War South; and The New Georgia Encyclopedia. He is a professor of history at the University of Georgia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr; First Edition edition (November 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807130990
• ISBN-13: 978-0807130995
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,715,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly presented and organized model of anthologized, specialized, analytical historical studies., June 8, 2007

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas (Conflicting World: New Dimenion of the American Civil War) (Paperback)

The academically impressive and deftly collaborative editorial effort of Lesley J. Gordon (Associate Professor of History, University of Akron) and John C. Inscoe (Professor of History, University of Georgia), "Inside The Confederate Nation" is a compilation of essays in honor of Emory M. Thomas by a series of learned contributors and scholars that focus on the subject of the conservative revolution of 1861 that transformed an essentially conservative American South into a radically different socio-political culture by the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. The contributions are organized into four major sections: 'Nationalism and Identity'; 'Family and Gender'; 'Race'; 'Memory and Legacies'. Enhanced with an informative introduction by Professors Gordon and Incoe, and the article by Russell Duncan and Jennifer Lund Smith, 'Emory M. Thomas and the Confederate Imagination', and concluding with a Select Bibliography, a list of Editors and Contributors, and a comprehensive Index, "Inside The Confederate Nation is a superbly presented and organized model of anthologized, specialized, analytical historical studies. Also available in a hardcover edition (9780807130995, $65.00), "Inside The Confederate Nation" is a very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library Civil War Studies and 19th Century American History Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.