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American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era
David W. Blight
€ 27.99
€ 24.07
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Description for American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era
Paperback. Takes readers back to the Civil War's centennial celebration to determine how Americans made sense of the suffering, loss, and liberation a century earlier. The author shows how four of America's most incisive writers - Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson, and James Baldwin - explored the gulf between remembrance and reality. Num Pages: 328 pages. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 3JH; HBJK; HBLL; HBWJ; JFFJ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 199 x 136 x 20. Weight in Grams: 396.
“The ghosts of the Civil War never leave us, as David Blight knows perhaps better than anyone, and in this superb book he masterfully unites two distant but inextricably bound events.”―Ken Burns
Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, a century after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared, “One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.” He delivered this speech just three years after the Virginia Civil War Commission published a guide proclaiming that “the Centennial is no time for finding fault or placing blame or fighting ... Read more
Product Details
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Number of pages
328
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2013
Condition
New
Weight
396g
Number of Pages
328
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass., United States
ISBN
9780674725973
SKU
V9780674725973
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About David W. Blight
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 ... Read more
Reviews for American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era
The Civil War has given us not only great history, literature, and art, but also great works of thought. David Blight enriches this canon by probing the war’s power to haunt and inspire every generation. American Oracle is intellectual history at its best—deep terrain, mined by a scholar who brings gems to the page.
Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates ... Read more The ghosts of the Civil War never leave us, as David Blight knows perhaps better than anyone, and in this superb book he masterfully unites two distant but inextricably bound events with insightful dissection of the works of four of our best writers…obsessed with coming to terms with our original sin.
Ken Burns A searching and suggestive book.
Andrew Delbanco
New York Review of Books
An introspective journey into America’s most complex and enigmatic historical event through the minds of four exceptional storytellers. [Blight] offers us the opportunity to revisit a monumental tragedy and…to probe its meaning.
Times Higher Education
David W. Blight’s richly interpretive American Oracle contextualizes the sentimentalized celebration of the Civil War in the early 1960s within the tense realities of the civil rights era and the Cold War. Blight unravels the complexities of Civil War memory and meaning at a time when most white Americans considered restoration of the Union, not emancipation, as the war’s grand result.
Charlotte Observer
Blight explores the mythology that came out of the Civil War and the sense of American redemption that did not include any examination of the tragedies of racism and slavery.
Vanessa Bush
Booklist (starred review)
Truly a tour de force…intellectual history and criticism at the highest level, told with passion and artistry.
Fitzhugh Brundage, author of The Southern Past Perceptive, eloquent, and timely, Blight’s book should find a wide and appreciative audience.
Gary Gallagher, author of The Union War During the middle decades of the twentieth century the United States faced a dual challenge—of civility and memory, each one race-related. David Blight develops deep biographical links to connect and explain those troubled years, and does so with eloquence. He thereby adds a brilliant new aspect to the field of American memory studies.
Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture (Emeritus) at Cornell University and Past President of the Organization of American Historians Blight’s elegant narrative enables us to see the full, enduring, significance of the Civil War in the consciousness of four major writers. An outstanding achievement.
Caryl Phillips, author of Dancing in the Dark This is a distinctive addition to the books about the Civil War and how we view it on the conflict’s 150th anniversary.
Publishers Weekly
Overall a valuable contribution to historical understanding.
D. Schaefer
Choice
Show Less
Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates ... Read more The ghosts of the Civil War never leave us, as David Blight knows perhaps better than anyone, and in this superb book he masterfully unites two distant but inextricably bound events with insightful dissection of the works of four of our best writers…obsessed with coming to terms with our original sin.
Ken Burns A searching and suggestive book.
Andrew Delbanco
New York Review of Books
An introspective journey into America’s most complex and enigmatic historical event through the minds of four exceptional storytellers. [Blight] offers us the opportunity to revisit a monumental tragedy and…to probe its meaning.
Times Higher Education
David W. Blight’s richly interpretive American Oracle contextualizes the sentimentalized celebration of the Civil War in the early 1960s within the tense realities of the civil rights era and the Cold War. Blight unravels the complexities of Civil War memory and meaning at a time when most white Americans considered restoration of the Union, not emancipation, as the war’s grand result.
Charlotte Observer
Blight explores the mythology that came out of the Civil War and the sense of American redemption that did not include any examination of the tragedies of racism and slavery.
Vanessa Bush
Booklist (starred review)
Truly a tour de force…intellectual history and criticism at the highest level, told with passion and artistry.
Fitzhugh Brundage, author of The Southern Past Perceptive, eloquent, and timely, Blight’s book should find a wide and appreciative audience.
Gary Gallagher, author of The Union War During the middle decades of the twentieth century the United States faced a dual challenge—of civility and memory, each one race-related. David Blight develops deep biographical links to connect and explain those troubled years, and does so with eloquence. He thereby adds a brilliant new aspect to the field of American memory studies.
Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture (Emeritus) at Cornell University and Past President of the Organization of American Historians Blight’s elegant narrative enables us to see the full, enduring, significance of the Civil War in the consciousness of four major writers. An outstanding achievement.
Caryl Phillips, author of Dancing in the Dark This is a distinctive addition to the books about the Civil War and how we view it on the conflict’s 150th anniversary.
Publishers Weekly
Overall a valuable contribution to historical understanding.
D. Schaefer
Choice
Show Less