The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South

by Drew Gilpin Faust

Overview

For decades, historians have debated the meaning and significance of Confederate nationalism and the role it played in the outcome of the Civil War. Yet they have paid little attention to the actual development and content of this Confederate ideology. In The Creation of Confederate Nationalism, Drew Gilpin Faust argues that coming to a fuller understanding of southern thought during the Civil War period offers a valuable refraction of the essential assumptions on which the Old South and the Confederacy were built. She shows the benefits of exploring Confederate nationalism “as the South’s commentary upon itself, as its effort to represent southern culture to the world at large, to history, and perhaps most revealingly, to its own people.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807116067
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1989
Series:	Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	482,986
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

DREW GILPIN FAUST is the author of six books, including This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War and Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. She is president of Harvard University. The Great Seal of the Confederacy reproduced courtesy of The Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia

Editorial Reviews

Faust’s analysis of Confederate nationalism gives us a deepened understanding of the Confederate self-image. Well written, clearly argued, and even properly illustrated, it constitutes must reading for all students and admirers of the Lost Cause.

Civil War News

An outstanding piece of work: boldly conceptualized, extremely thoughtful, and elegantly written.

Steven Hahn