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13%OFFMark S. Schantz - Awaiting the Heavenly Country - 9780801437618 - V9780801437618
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Awaiting the Heavenly Country

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Description for Awaiting the Heavenly Country Hardback. Num Pages: 264 pages, 30. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 3JH; HBJK; HBLL; HBTB; HBW; JHBZ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 229 x 152 x 23. Weight in Grams: 542.

"Americans came to fight the Civil War in the midst of a wider cultural world that sent them messages about death that made it easier to kill and to be killed. They understood that death awaited all who were born and prized the ability to face death with a spirit of calm resignation. They believed that a heavenly eternity of transcendent beauty awaited them beyond the grave. They knew that their heroic achievements would be cherished forever by posterity. They grasped that death itself might be seen as artistically fascinating and even beautiful."—from Awaiting the Heavenly Country

How much loss ... Read more

Did antebellum Americans hold their lives so lightly, or was death so familiar to them that it did not bear avoiding? In Awaiting the Heavenly Country, Mark S. Schantz argues that American attitudes and ideas about death helped facilitate the war's tremendous carnage. Asserting that nineteenth-century attitudes toward death were firmly in place before the war began rather than arising from a sense of resignation after the losses became apparent, Schantz has written a fascinating and chilling narrative of how a society understood death and reckoned the magnitude of destruction it was willing to tolerate.

Schantz addresses topics such as the pervasiveness of death in the culture of antebellum America; theological discourse and debate on the nature of heaven and the afterlife; the rural cemetery movement and the inheritance of the Greek revival; death as a major topic in American poetry; African American notions of death, slavery, and citizenship; and a treatment of the art of death—including memorial lithographs, postmortem photography and Rembrandt Peale's major exhibition painting The Court of Death.

Awaiting the Heavenly Country is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the Civil War and the ways in which antebellum Americans comprehended death and the unimaginable bloodshed on the horizon.

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Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
2008
Publisher
Cornell University Press United States
Number of pages
264
Condition
New
Number of Pages
264
Place of Publication
Ithaca, United States
ISBN
9780801437618
SKU
V9780801437618
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-38

About Mark S. Schantz
Mark S. Schantz is Professor of History and Director of the Odyssey Program at Hendrix College.

Reviews for Awaiting the Heavenly Country
Awaiting the Heavenly Country is a first-rate book with careful research on an intriguing subject. It makes an important contribution to the understandin of the Civil War era.
Lance J. Herdegen
America's Civil War
Schantz makes a compelling case that Americans' experiences with, and ideas about, death before the Civil War made it possible for them to ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for Awaiting the Heavenly Country


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