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James
M. Gillispie (Ph.D. 2000)
Andersonvilles
of the North: The Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment
of Civil War Confederate Prisoners
(University of North Texas Press, 2008)
"Andersonvilles of the North
is an outstanding work of Civil War history. With superb
research and penetrating analysis Gillispie has rewritten
an entire chapter of our received 'knowledge' of the
conflict. This much-needed book should be read by every
student of the Civil War." ---Steven E. Woodworth,
author of Jefferson Davis and His Generals and Six
Armies in Tennessee
James Gillispie teaches history
at Sampson Community College in Clinton, North Carolina,
and has won several teaching awards.
Brian Craig
Miller (Ph.D. 2006)
The
American Memory: Americans And Their History To 1877
(Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2008)
Professor
Miller is an Assistant Professor of History at Emporia
State University.
Ben Wynne (Ph.D.
2000)
Mississippi
(Interlink Publishing, 2007)
Beginning
with the state's earliest settler, Ben Wynne explores
the paradox that is Mississippi--its rich soil and namesake
river, yet its vulnerability to natural disasters such
as Hurricane Katrina. It is the birthplace of the blues
and the childhood home of such American icons as Elvis
Presley, William Faulkner, Oprah Winfrey, and B. B.
King. Wynne sketches Mississippi's development from
primarily native settlements and wilderness to industry-driven
cities; examines the importance of slavery and agriculture
and the resulting devastation that followed the Civil
War; and follows the slow transition from segregation
to equal rights marked by the Civil Rights movement
of the 1960s.
Ben
Wynne is the author of a number of works on his home
state of Mississippi and the South. Professor Wynne
is an Assistant Professor of History at Gainesville
State College.
Jennifer
W. Ford (M.A. 1997)
The
Hour of Our Nation's Agony
The Civil War Letters of Lt. William Cowper Nelson
of Mississippi
Edited by Jennifer W. Ford
(University of Tennessee Press, 2007)
The Hour of
Our Nation's Agony offers a revealing look into
the life of a Confederate soldier as he is transformed
by the war. Through these literate, perceptive, and
illuminating letters, readers can trace Lt. William
Cowper Nelson's evolution from an idealistic young soldier
to a battle-hardened veteran. Nelson joined the army
at the age of nineteen, leaving behind a close-knit
family in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He served for
much of the war in the Third Corps of Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia. In his correspondence, Nelson
discusses in detail the soldier's life, religion in
the ranks, his love for and heartbreak at being separated
from his family, and Southern identity. Readers will
find his reflections on slavery, religion, and the Confederacy
particularly revealing.
Jennifer Ford places
Nelson squarely in the middle of the historiographic
debate over the degree of disillusionment felt by Civil
War solders, arguing that Nelson--like many soldiers--was
a complex individual who does not fit neatly into one
interpretation.
Jennifer
W. Ford is the head of special collections and associate
professor at the J. D. Willimas Library at the University
of Mississippi, where the collection containing Lieutenant
Nelson's letters and other family documents is held.
Blood
Image: Turner Ashby in the Civil War and the Southern
Mind
(Louisiana State University Press, 2002)
Issued
in paperback (2007)
With Blood Image, his compellingly original
biography of Confederate cavalry leader Turner Ashby,
Paul Anderson demonstrates that the symbol of a man
can be just as important as the man himself. Renowned
as a born leader, graceful horseman, and violent partisan
warrior, Turner Ashby was one of the most famous fighting
men of the Civil War. Rising to colonel of the
7th Virginia Cavalry, Ashby fought brilliantly under
Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson during the 1862
Shenandoah Valley campaign until he died in battle near
Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Recognizing the power of Ashby's fame as knightly horseman,
family defender, natural man and savage, and confederate
warrior, Anderson boldly organizes his study in four
radial chapters that capture and reflect the circular
energy of those images, each facet reinforcing and refreshing
the others. With superb scholarship he shows
that the force of Ashby's image was double-edged:
it inspired admirers in the Shenandoah Valley, but it
also shielded them from the savagery of a war that challenged
the very ideals at the heart of their defense of home.
The author is an Associate Professor
of History and Alumni Master Teacher at Clemson University.
J. Michael Butler
(Ph.D., 2001)
Victory After The
Fall
Rev. H. K. Matthews with
J. Michael Butler
(NewSouth, Inc. 2007)
Reverend H. K. Matthews is one of the
unsung heroes of the Southern civil rights movement.
Among his activism, he participated in the first sit-in
demonstrations in northwest Florida, and led a campaign
against the use of Confederate symbols at an area high
school, and much more. And he served time in state prison
for a crime that never occurred. However, his memoir
Victory After the Fall is much more than one
man's account of his life experiences. It is a first-person
narrative of the challenges and opportunities black
citizens encountered before, during, and after the 1960s
struggle for racial equality. Matthews reveals what
impact the unique community of Snow Hill, Alabama, had
upon him as a young boy. He describes the influence
other pioneer activists such as Rev. W. C. Dobbins had
on his life, and tells of the close encounters he had
with the Klu Klux Klan in Florida. The book also provides
insight into the impact his activities had upon race
relations in Pensacola and how his ordeal still impacts
the city. Victory After the Fall provides a
fascinating journey into the civil rights battlegrounds
of northwest Florida and beyond, but it is also a story
of moral courage and personal redemption. Matthews tells
how he lost everything as a result of his ceaseless
campaign for human dignity and left Pensacola a broken
man. But he discovered in Alabama that some things could
never be taken from him. This book outlines the rise,
fall, and ultimate victory that a remarkable person
endured because of his efforts to improve relations
between his fellow men.
J. Michael Butler is an Assistant
Professor of History at South Georgia College.
Ben Wynne (Ph.D.
2000)
Mississippi's Civil
War: A Narrative History
(Mercer University Press,
2006)
This book examines Mississippi’s Civil War experience.
It begins with an introductory overview of the socio-political
climate of the state during the 1850s and ends with
a treatment of Mississippi’s post-war environment
and the rise of Lost Cause mythology. In between, the
work covers the pivotal events, issues, and personalities
of the period. Wynne emphasizes the experiences of Mississippians—male
and female, black and white—as they struggled
to deal with the crisis. The political events leading
to secession, Mississippians’ initial enthusiasm
for war,voices of dissent, the disbursement of troops
in and out of the state, the home front, freedom for
the slave community, waning enthusiasm (both in the
military and on the home front) as the war dragged on,
defeat, and the ultimate struggle to turn defeat into
a moral victory through Lost Cause mythology are also
discussed. This book makes significant contributions
to Civil War literature. First, while there are a number
of works on individual incidents or battles during the
war (for instance, five or six studies of the siege
of Vicksburg currently are in print), there are no works
that cover the state’s overall experience in a
social, political and military context. Second, while
not ignored, events in the western theatre of the war
often do not receive the same amount of attention as
those that took place in the East, particularly in Virginia,
and Mississippi was a focal point of the western theatre.
Finally, the book emphasizes the real rather than the
romantic. Most Mississippians both at home and in the
Confederate army undertook the war effort with great
enthusiasm without realizing the ultimate cost.
Ben Wynne is assistant professor of history
at Gainesville State College.
Suzanne W. Jones
and Mark Newman (Ph.D. 1993), eds.
Poverty and Progress in the
U.S. South since 1920
(U Uitgeverij, 2006)
Mark
Newman is a senior lecturer in history at the University
of Derby. He won the Southern Regional Council's Smith
Book Award for Getting Right with God.
William
Jay: Abolitionist & Anticolonialist
(Praeger Publishers, 2005)
"For many years
historians have correctly called William Jay a neglected
but important figure in this nation's greatest reform
movement. This study is much more than just a biography,
for it deals not only with abolition but Jay's opposition
to the counter movement to rid the nation of mostly
American-born black slaves by shipping them 'back' to
Africa. Thus this first-rate study illuminates the tension
between two vital, longstanding, and contradictory sets
of feelings among a great many white Americans."
---Winthop D. Jordan, Univeristy of Mississippi Distinguished
Professor
Stephen P. Budney is Associate Professor of
History at Pikeville College
Never
Surrender: Confederate Memory and Conservatism in the
South Carolina Upcountry
(University of Georgia Press, 2004)
"In this examination of the experience and evolution
of memory, celebration, and symbols in the South Carolina
upcountry, W. Scott Poole explains how the 'Lost Cause'
became transformed from 'a living ideology of defiance'
to 'a dead past to be honored.' He provides fresh insights
and understanding of the roots of southern conservatism
and the central role of Pitchfork Ben Tillman in making
racial violence a central element in his state's trasition
to modernity." --Orville Vernon Burton, University
Distinguished Teacher/Scholar, University of Illinois.
W. Scott Poole is an Assistant Professor of
History at the University of Charleston.
Divine
Agitators: The Delta Ministry and Civil Rights in Mississippi
(University of Georgia
Press, 2004)
In his second book,
historian Mark Newman inspects the Delta Ministry, which
the National Council of Churches established in 1964
as a servant ministry in Mississippi. It is the first
full-length history of one of the largest and most enduring
civil rights organizations in the Mississippi movement.
Divine Agitators
looks at many inadequately studied events across a time
span that extends beyond the widely accepted end dates
of the civil rights movement. It offers new insights,
at the most local levels of the movement, conflict within
and between civil rights groups, the increasing subtlety
of white resistance, the disengagement of federal government,
and the rise of Black Power.
Mark
Newman is a senior lecturer in history at the University
of Derby. He won the Southern Regional Council's Smith
Book Award for Getting Right with God.
David J. Libby
(Ph.D., 1997)
Slavery and Frontier
Mississippi, 1720-1835
(University
Press of Mississippi, 2003)
In the popular imagination
the picture of slavery, frozen in time, is one of huge
cotton plantations and opulent mansions. However, in
over a hundred years of history detailed in this book,
the hard reality of slavery in Mississippi's antebellum
world is strinkingly different from the one of popular
myth. It shows that Mississippi's past was never frozen,
but always fluid. It shows too that slavery took a number
of shapes before its form in the late antebellum mold
became crystalized for popular culture.
Almost simultaneously as Mississippi became a United
States territory in the 1790s, cotton became the cash
crop. The booming King Cotton economy changed Mississippi
and adpated the slave system that was its foundation.
Some Mississippi slaves resisted this grim oppression
and rebelled by flight, work slowdowns, arson, and conspiracies.
In 1835 a slave conspiracy in Madison County provoked
such draconian response among local slave holders that
planters throughout the state redoubled the iron locks
on the system. Race relations in the state remained
radicalized for many generations to follow.
Beginning with the arrival of the first African slaves
in the colony and extending over 115 years, this book
is the first such history since Charles Sydnor's Slavery
in Mississippi (1933).
A Hard Trip:
A History of the 15th Mississippi Infantry, CSA
(Mercer University Press, 2002)
The history of the
15th Mississippi Infantry in the social context of the
western theater of the Civil War. Not strictly
a military history, Ben Wynne examines in this book
the social components of Confederate service in the
context of the experiences of a single regiment.
Wynne begins with a general overview of the political
climate of the 1850s, localized to the region that produced
the 15th Mississippi, then covers the regiment's movements
through the western theater, and ends with a localized
treatment of the post-war social climate and the rise
of Lost Cause mythology. The emphasis in this
insightful and new approach to the Civil War focuses
on the experiences of the men who served in the regiment,
including their intrinsic connection to their communities,
reasons that they enlisted, reactions to their first
combat, views on conscription, accounts of major battles
in the western theater, the ebb and flow of morale,
desertion, and the post-war status of the men as heroes
in a culture struggling to rationalize defeat.
Using first person accounts from letters, diaries, memoirs,
and other primary materials, the book sets the 15th
Mississippi in a personal context. The narrative
is chronologically arranged by the events of the western
theater of the Civil War. Emphasizing the real
war and not a romanticized version, the story of this
unique regiment follows a group of men who entered the
war with visions of glory and honor but within one year
came to recognize the true nature of the conflict.
Ben Wynne is an Assistant Professor
of History at Gainesville State College.
Getting
Right with God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation,
1945-1995
(UA Press, 2002)
Winner
of the Southern Regional Council's Smith Book Award
"This is a moving account of a great regional,
religious, and racial tragedy, and Newman treats everyone
involved with fairness, understanding, and empathy...
This book covers a lot of terrain that has never been
spelled out before, and it will be the indispensable
first word on the topic... It fills a very significant
void in the scholarship of the 20th century South and
of the history of southern religion." --John
Boles, Rice University
The author is Professor of American
Studies at the University of Derby, UK.
Automobility:
Social Changes in America South, 1909-1939
(Routledge, 2001)
The automobile presented opportunities
for early twentieth century Mississippians to change
their patterns of work and leisure, and to alter the
foundations of their society, family, church and school.
This book investigates the depth of those changes
brought about by the automobile.
The author is an Assistant Professor
of History and Minority Advising Program Coordinator
at Waycross College.
Chalmers,
Mary and Arlene Sindelar, eds. Western Civilization:
A Social and Political History--Documents Collection.
2 vols.
(Prentice Hall, 2000)
Kagan, Donald, Steven Ozment, and Frank
M. Turner. The Western Heritage: Documents Collection.
2 vols. Revised and updated by Arlene Sindelar and Mary
Chalmers.
(Prentice Hall, 2000)
Dr. Sindelar is an Assistant
Professor of History at the University of British Columbia.
Tennessee's
Forgotten Warriors: Frank Cheatham and His Confederate
Division
(University of Tennessee Press, 1989,2001)
Christopher Losson's
study, the first full biography of Benjamin Franklin
Cheatham of Nashville, reestablishes the importance
of this colorful and controversial Tennessean who played
such a significant role as a general in the Confederate
Army of Tennessee and gives us a fuller picture of the
progress of the war in the western theater.
Although
Cheatham and his surviving veterans were convinced that
his exploits had secured them a permanent place in Tennessee
history, their fame faded with the passage of time.
Now, thanks to Losson's efforts--and through the words
they jotted down in diaries, letters, memoirs, and articles--they
have been rescued from obscurity. |
