Description: In this history, Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, the ritual of Memorial Day, and resurrects African-American voices and memories of the Civil War. 32 halftones.
Brief description: David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of many books, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and Race and Reunion (Harvard), which received the Bancroft Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize, among other awards.
Review Quotes: As Blight conclusively demonstrates, the United States was caught up almost immediately in a 'tormented relationship between healing and justice, ' and the abolitionist, emancipationist view of the war's aims quickly receded into the background...African Americans kept alive their own memories of slavery, the war and Reconstruction...but not until long after World War I did they begin to find a hearing for their grievances and yearnings.--Jonathan Yardley "Washington Post Book World" (2/4/2001 12:00:00 AM)