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Category Archives: Civil War
Polishing the “Marble Man”: Reflections on Douglas Southall Freeman’s “R.E. Lee” (4 vols., 1934-1935)
[NOTE: I never intended to read Douglas Southall Freeman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning four-volume biography of Robert E. Lee. After all, in grad school one of my professors dismissed Freeman’s effort out of hand, remarking that Freeman’s Lee would have been a … Continue reading
Posted in Age of Jim Crow, Books, Civil War, Current Events, Historical Reflection, History, History Teaching, Research, Retirement, Shelby Foote, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Uncategorized, WP Long Read
Tagged "R.E. Lee", Age of Jim Crow, American History, American History and Culture, American Popular Culture, Douglas Southall Freeman, Historical Reflection, history, Southern History
6 Comments
They don’t call me “Dr. Excitement” for nothin’, you know! (Be True to Your School, 5)
[Note: In a previous post in this series, I discussed how certain personal eccentricities helped me construct a “classroom persona,” one “Dr.,” beard, polyester suit, and awful pun at a time. In this entry, I’d like to offer a few … Continue reading
Posted in "The Race Beat", Age of Jim Crow, American History, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Cold War, Dr. Martin Luther King, Elias Boudinot, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, Interdisciplinary Work, Prep School, prep school teaching with a PhD, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Teaching, The Blues, Uncategorized, Vietnam War
Tagged Age of Jim Crow, American History, American History and Culture, American Popular Culture, Blues, Civil Rights Movement, Cold War, Historical Reflection, History Curriculum, History Teaching, History Teaching Career Retrospective, Interdisciplinary Work, Prep school teaching with a PhD, Southern History
4 Comments
BETTS: A MOTHER’S MEMOIR, 1923-1964, Part III: A Depression-Era Childhood
[Note: This installment of Betts’ story is drawn from her memoir, “Slub of Slife.” Parts I and II .] * * * * * We had no bathroom in the house [in Wilmington, Delaware], so we had an “outhouse” (enclosed “piddle palace”), … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Civil War, family history, genealogy, Historical Reflection, History, memoir, Popular Culture, Research, Retirement, Uncategorized, WP Long Read
Tagged Camden (New Jersey), family history, genealogy, Great Depression, memoir as historical source, Newark (Delaware), Wilmington (Delaware)
2 Comments
Changing Views of the Removal of the Cherokees from Georgia (In Pursuit of Dead Georgians, 25)
[NOTE: Over the past several years, while researching Rancorous Enmities and Blind Partialities: Factions and Parties in Georgia, 1807-1845 (2015), I read a lot of books on Cherokee removal and the “Trail of Tears,” key events during the years covered in that volume. These … Continue reading
Posted in "Cherokee Phoenix" (newspaper), American History, Books, Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Removal, Chief John Ross (Cherokees), Civil War, Georgia History, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Teaching, Uncategorized, WP Long Form, WP Long Read
Tagged A.J. Langguth, Brian Hicks, Daniel Black Smith, John Ehle, Steve Inskeep, Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, Thurman Wilkins, Tim Alan Garrison
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In [Digital] Pursuit of Dead Georgians, 20: Some Online Sources
[NOTE: With the new school year upon us, I thought I would offer a post in the “In Pursuit of Dead Georgians” series that is a bit different. This one is for my fellow teachers of American and Georgia history … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Civil War, Georgia History, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, History graduate school, Interdisciplinary Work, Prep School, prep school teaching with a PhD, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Teaching, Uncategorized
Tagged Digital Library of Georgia, Galileo website, Georgia History, Georgia newspapers, Teaching History in prep school
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The South on the Nation’s Psychiatric Couch, Again
A Review of Tracy Thompson, The New Mind of the South. New York and London: The Free Press, 2013. [NOTE: I became a historian of the South not by birth, but because a southern grad school to which I’d applied … Continue reading
Posted in Age of Jim Crow, American History, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Current Events, Georgia History, Historical Reflection, History, History graduate school, Popular Culture, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Uncategorized
Tagged Age of Jim Crow, Atlanta History, Civil Rights Movement, Southern Culture, Southern Identity, The New Mind of the South, Tracy Thompson
2 Comments
Getting Right With Spielberg’s “Lincoln”
I have never liked the “docudrama,” whether on television or in films–“too much ‘drama,’ not enough ‘docu,’” the historian in me grumped. And yet, without question the modern master of the epic “docudrama”/message movie is Steven Spielberg (“Amistad,” “Saving Private … Continue reading
Reading the Civil War: “Patriotic Gore”–And More
In the Fall of 1969, I took a grad school course on the Civil War. During a discussion of historiography, someone asked our professor his opinion of Shelby Foote’s history of the conflict, the first two volumes of which were then in … Continue reading
Book Notes: The “Great Migration”; Gore Vidal’s “Lincoln”
Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America(1991) Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (2010) A while ago, I posted a review of two works … Continue reading
