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"Give Your Other Vote to the Sister" tells the story of Roberta MacAdams, the first woman elected to the Alberta legislature. In fact, she was one of the first two women elected to a legislature anywhere in the British empire. Her triumph was extraordinary for many reasons. Not only did she run while serving as a nursing sister overseas during the Great War, but over 90 per cent of her electors were men - Alberta soldiers stationed in England and in the muddy trenches of the Western Front. "Give Your Other Vote to the Sister" describes MacAdams' journey overseas, her work at a large military hospital in London, and the personal sacrifices she endured during the war. It also chronicles Debbie Marshall's own journey to reclaim MacAdams' life, one that took her across Canada and to the places where MacAdams lived and worked in England and France. It was a search that would change her own perceptions about how and why so may women willingly participated in the world's first 'great war'. ... Read more

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The 1950s have passed into the history books as the period of the Federal Republic of Germany's so-called "economic miracle"; yet attention to women's roles in economic reconstruction has until now been negligible. In this book, Erica Carter explores how the development of a "social market economy" after 1949 gave a new centrality to consumers as key players in the economic life of the nation, and, in that process, gave women a new public significance.
Public attention focused in particular on the nation's housewives, who were to train the populace for entry into a new world of consumer prosperity. Carter investigates this focus from two perspectives: in part 1, she tackles the political economy of postwar West German consumption, and in part 2, she looks at representations of the consuming woman across a range of popular cultural forms. Since visual imagery is discussed at length, the book is lavishly illustrated with advertisements, fashion photographs, film stills, and documentary photography from the period.
How German Is She? also makes a distinctive contribution to questions of national identity. While many historians agree that nationalism was a spent force after 1945, Carter argues that concepts of nationhood survived in the rhetorics of public policy and in popular culture of the period. In this context, national and efficient consumption became a housewife's duty, not just to husband and family, but to the postwar "nation." The book will be of primary interest to scholars and students in German studies, women's studies, and cultural studies.
Erica Carter is Research Fellow in German Studies, University of Warwick.
... Read more

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Outstanding
This is an extraordinary work of scholarship, quite in a league of its own in this field. Carter is sharp, informed and passionate. Her writing on the German woman in film is particularly insightful. Read. ... Read more

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Ever since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise.

From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. InWomen as Weapons of War, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right tobare arms is a sign of freedom and progress.

Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence.

Customer Reviews (3)

Eye Opening
This book is eye opening.It made me see connections between the treatment of women soldiers in the U.S. military and women suicide bombers in the Middle East.And, the criticisms of the media coverage of the war is very interesting and persuasive.

Kelly Oliver's Women as Weapons of War
Kelly Oliver's Women as Weapons of War challenges academic philosophy to extend its concerns beyond its usual audience and scope and engage meaningfully with current events. In this sense, Oliver's book accomplishes what most contemporary philosophy books (even those that portend to address issues like war, torture, terror, globalization, and so on) lack: a real confrontation with the shape of the contemporary world. At the same time, the book challenges the general public to reflect meaningfully on current events, their representations in the media, and the social and political forces that undermine our interpretative capacities. Oliver offers a set of critical tools that not only open analyses of America's recent and current war efforts, but also helps us to extend those analyses to our own everyday lives and ethics and politics more generally. Oliver's analyses are highly original and provide a unique vision that ties the individual's concrete, everyday, affective life to the larger functioning of international and global forces and representations. What is surprising is her uncanny ability to do so in a way that skillfully addresses such a large and diverse audience. This book is really for everyone: for scholars, students, journalists, activists, and those who are simply concerned with the role of sex, sexuality, and sexual/sexed violence in politics, war, and the media. In a word, read this book!

Good Primer
I read this book and felt like I've already read it. I had already read _One of the Guys_ edited by Tara McKelvey and Cynthia Enloe's lates _Globalization and Militarism_, so when I read Oliver's book I felt like it didn't say anything new that I have not read in the two other books or in the New York Times. The two other books are superior in their reach and clarity of the topics.

Oliver's book does delve into more theory and that aspect at times makes it interesting. But, overall for teaching purposes the other books are better. If you haven't read the two other books, then by all means read this book first and I think you'll enjoy it.

Audience for Oliver's book is more academic. It would be perfect in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the upper-division level or even graduate level. ... Read more

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Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq offers a feminist critique and reconstruction of just war theory. It points out gender biases in the just war tradition and suggests alternative jus ad bellum and jus in bello standards that emphasize women, political marginality, and empathy. Laura Sjoberg applies this feminist just war theory to analyze the wars in Iraq since the end of the Cold War. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Socio-Politico Boredom
On Their Own
by Joyce Hoffman
De Capo Press - 2008
ISBN: 978-0-306-81059-6

I purchased this book a few months ago, out of the bargain bin at one of our local stores. I was all set to relive the woman journalists experience of Vietnam! Excitedly I tore into the book immediately when I got home, only to find myself bogged down in the political drama of the 1950's and the McCarthy era.

It's now been nearly three months since I purchased the book, and I find myself totally unable to finish this dull and boring socio-political study of the Vietnam War!

I wanted first-hand knowledge of what these women went through. What they suffered. What they saw.

I want their experiences!

And so I've closed this book, unable to get more than a little over half-way through it.

Perhaps if Hoffman had written a little more about the actual female experience as a journalist in a war torn country, rather than the politics I would have been able to complete this.

I do give this one star for the great photos of the journalists. But overall, I give it my "thumbs down" award.

From Feminist Review.org
Joyce Hoffman read a book about journalists who reported on American involvement in Vietnam in the sixties and wondered to herself, "Where are the women?" Considering that she holds a Ph.D. in American Studies, a job teaching journalism to college students, and pens a biweekly op-ed column about journalism accuracy and fairness issues, it was not unlikely that she would write the book that would answer that question. On Their Own offers a thoroughly researched account of fifteen women who played vital, if varying, roles in the reporting of the Vietnam War.

For myself, when I studied the media industry in college, I became so disenchanted with the corporate system of information dissemination in the United States that instead of packing the tailored black suit in my closet upon graduation, I grabbed a rucksack and waited tables for awhile. But journalism still fascinates me, and for that reason, I wish that I had read this book in school. Many of these women simply bought a plane ticket and showed up in Saigon, determined to find their own stories. They believed that if they did their job well, they would be published by many of the male editors who told them they couldn't do it in the first place, as they indeed were.

As a pleasure read, On Their Own can be a bit dense with historical detail that sometimes stifles the narrative of each experience; however, this detail makes the book richer for any student of the history of journalism. I had a hard time getting started with it, but I soon realized that my difficulty was because the first 100 pages deal mainly with more socially conservative women who believed in the United State's right to be in Vietnam and felt that the people there needed to be Westernized for their own good - talented and outspoken reporters, but not women I wanted to spend much time with. Once I got into chapter three, I found stories that were not only adventurous, but personally inspiring.

Frankie Fitzgerald's story is one that any aspiring and socially conscious non-fiction writer should become acquainted with. Daughter of the CIA's director of operations, she spent years in Vietnam, on her own, writing with a sense of purpose. Convinced that the war was immoral and wrong, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. "She once asked a Vietnamese associate what he thought would happen if the United States withdrew. He told her: `Don't ask us that. It's none of your business. We just want you to leave.'"

Reporting on a war requires much more than death tolls and fire fight descriptions. Today, it seems obvious that different perspectives on the impact of war on societies engaged in it add invaluable relevance to that body of journalism. We are still faced with government influence and spin. The more people are reporting on events, the better we can understand them and use that knowledge to avoid mistakes in the future. Right?


Review by Jennifer M. Wilson ... Read more

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In Bosnia and Herzegovina thousands of women were subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence during the war from 1992 to 1995. Fifteen years after its end, those whose lives were wrecked by rape still await for their perpetrators to be convicted. Only a handful of the perpetrators have been brought to justice and the authorities have failed to ensure adequate reparations to the survivors of this violence. This book discloses that violence against women during the Bosnian conflict can not be perceived as collateral damage, but as part of a carefully outlined military strategy targeted to ethnically cleanse the area. Raping of women during the conflict was not only pervasive, but committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the particular civilian population. The case study provides a compelling analysis of the horrifying phenomenon of wartime rapes as a carefully outlined military strategy aimed to ethnically cleanse an area. This book will be of interest to students, academics, and human rights practitioners. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Are you kidding?
I did not read this book but I heard Haifa Zangana's interview with Diane Rehm.
I was absolutely flabbergasted (listen for yourself - http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/11/26.php#18056).

She consistently and blatantly evades uncomfortable questions (changing the subject like a seasoned politician),
she refuses to say that the U.S should leave immediately (the US should only give statements regarding its intent....!?) but at the same time says that everything is the fault of the U.S.

And the frosting on top was her statement that there is no Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq (it's a US fabrication)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was nothing more than ridiculous propaganda and lies, how could her book be believable?
In short it was the usual Arab slant, nothing is our fault, we are a peace loving people (this is a quote), it's all the fault of the U.S and Israel, we are perfect, and the US is the devil.
Come-on are you for real??

P.S Personally I think that the occupation has turned out to be a disaster and that Bush is the worse president ever, so I'm not bashing her as a right wing republican, just as a truth seeking citizen.

REQUIRED READING ON IRAQ
Iraqi journalist and activist Haifa Zangana writes boldly about the current conditions of her homeland.The first account about occupied Iraq by an Iraqi woman, CITY OF WIDOWS provides a poignant and thorough outline to understanding the nation's intricate ethnic and political situation.Zangana's strongest arguments are those against the neo-colonial, Western "feminist" NGOs who have accompanied the US-led occupation.Groundbreaking, innovative and truthful, this book is not to be missed.

An Exceptional and Brave Book
City of Widows should be read by anyone interested in the truth of the devastating events that have occurred in Iraq. It is the only account of it's kind that shares with the public how Iraqi's are being treated by the American government, and what has occurred in the country as a result. Namely, that a country of liberated women are now struggling to survive. This is a book about a women's life as it reflects all of the women in Iraq. ... Read more

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Nelly Roussel (1878--1922) -- the first feminist spokeswoman for birth control in Europe -- challenged both the men of early twentieth-century France, who sought to preserve the status quo, and the women who aimed to change it. She delivered her messages through public lectures, journalism, and theater, dazzling audiences with her beauty, intelligence, and disarming wit. She did so within the context of a national depopulation crisis caused by the confluence of low birth rates, the rise of international tensions, and the tragedy of the First World War. While her support spread across social classes, strong political resistance to her message revealed deeply conservative precepts about gender which were grounded in French identity itself.

In this thoughtful and provocative study, Elinor Accampo follows Roussel's life from her youth, marriage, speaking career, motherhood, and political activism to her decline and death from tuberculosis in the years following World War I. She tells the story of a woman whose life and work spanned a historical moment when womanhood was being redefined by the acceptance of a woman's sexuality as distinct from her biological, reproductive role -- a development that is still causing controversy today.

Customer Reviews (1)

Her biographer does an outstanding job of linking Roussel's life and thoughts
One of French feminism's most courageous public figures has received relatively little in-depth mention until now: Nelly Roussel's crusade gave women control over their own bodies and sexuality and Blessed Motherhood Bitter Fruit reveals her sacrifices and accomplishments during the process. Roussel was an actress and beauty who defined parameters of the women's movement which would not be realized for over seventy years: she was the first feminist spokeswoman for birth control in Europe and her lectures, essays, and speeches promoted then-radical ways of thinking. Her biographer does an outstanding job of linking Roussel's life and thoughts to her times and the evolving history of the women's movement as a whole, making it a top pick for any definitive women's history collection.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on December 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1170 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Women's Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France During the First World War.(Review) (book review)
Author: Ellen Jacobs
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2000
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 35Issue: 3Page: 563

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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w/Serbo-Croatian, English, Italian & Spanish text ... Read more

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In an in-depth community study of women in the civil rights movement, Christina Greene examines how several generations of black and white women, low-income as well as more affluent, shaped the struggle for black freedom in Durham, North Carolina. In the city long known as the "capital of the black middle class," Greene finds that, in fact, low-income African American women were the sustaining force for change.

Greene demonstrates that women activists frequently were more organized, more militant, and more numerous than their male counterparts. They brought new approaches and strategies to protest, leadership, and racial politics. Arguing that race was not automatically a unifying force, Greene sheds new light on the class and gender fault lines within Durham's black community. While middle-class black leaders cautiously negotiated with whites in the boardroom, low-income black women were coordinating direct action in hair salons and neighborhood meetings.

Greene's analysis challenges scholars and activists to rethink the contours of grassroots activism in the struggle for racial and economic justice in postwar America. She provides fresh insight into the changing nature of southern white liberalism and interracial alliances, the desegregation of schools and public accommodations, and the battle to end employment discrimination and urban poverty. ... Read more

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As the closest advisor to Alfred E. Smith, four-term Democratic governor of New York and presidential candidate, Belle Moskowitz (1877-1933) was the most powerful woman in Democratic party politics during the 1920s.She served as Smith's strategist, public relations director, and campaign manager, and was a major force in shaping the social welfare programs for which his administration is best known today.

Now available in a new edition, this well-crafted feminist biography restores to history the career of a pioneering activist who achieved unprecedented influence in American politics. ... Read more

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A very well crafted political and feminist biography.
In Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics And The Exercise Of Power In The AgeOf Alfred E. Smith, Elisabeth Perrypresents an impressive work ofbiographical scholarship on the woman who was four-term Democratic governorof New York and unsuccessful presidential candidate, Alfred E. Smith'scloset political advisor. Bell Moskowitz (1877-1933) was the most powerfulwoman in Democratic party politics during the 1920s and served as Smith'sstrategist, public relations director, and campaign manager. She was also amajor force in shaping the social welfare programs for which hisgubernatorial administration is best remembered for today. A well-craftedfeminist biography, Belle Moskowitz showcases a pioneering female activistwho achieved unprecedented influence in American politics, only to fallinto an undeserved obscurity. Belle Moskowitz redresses that historicaloversight and is a very highly recommended contribution to women's studies,American political history, and feminist biography collections. ... Read more

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Tami Amanda Jacoby investigates the constraints and opportunities for women's civic engagements in zones of conflict through a case study of three women's political movements in Israel: Women in Green, The Jerusalem Link, and the lobby for women's right to fight in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Filling a void in feminist studies of women and war, Women in Zones of Conflict challenges the traditional view, which suggests a natural connection between women and pacifism, based on the feminine qualities of caring, cooperation, and empathy. Feminist studies of nationalism also envision women as either victimized by patriarchy within nationalist movements or as adopting masculine qualities to conform to the culture of their male compatriots. Jacoby takes an alternative approach, considering how women are situated across the political spectrum. She argues that when categories other than gender - such as class, ethnicity, religion, and political perspective - are considered, there is no single perspective on what it means to be a woman in conflict. ... Read more

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"The ancient Celts capture the modern imagination as do few other people of classical times. Naked barbarians charging the Roman legions, Druids performing sacrifices of unspeakable horror, women fighting beside their men and even leading armies--these, along with stunning works of art, are the images most of us call to mind when we think of the Celts," observes Philip Freeman. "And for the most part, these images are firmly based in the descriptions handed down to us by the Greek and Roman writers." This book draws on the firsthand observations and early accounts of classical writers to piece together a detailed portrait of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe and the British Isles. Philip Freeman groups the selections (ranging from short statements to longer treatises) by themes--war, feasting, poetry, religion, women, and the Western Isles. He also presents inscriptions written by the ancient Celts themselves. This wealth of material, introduced and translated by Freeman to be especially accessible to students and general readers, makes this book essential reading for everyone fascinated by the ancient Celts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Pricey, short but very informative
At 99 pages and $35US (at time of review), the book doesnt come cheap. Thats the negative.

However if you are seeking quality over quantity and want a work where the bulk of the information is drawn from first hand accounts, as opposed to suppositions and conjectures by present day historicans then this is a fine work.

Chapter names are: (1) War (2) Feasting (3) Poetry (4) Religion (5) The Western Isles (6) The Ancient Celts Speak. The first 5 are self explanatory but the last is less so. The last chapter is basically overturning the old view that Druids left no written records due to their forbading any sacred text as well as the notion that Classical Celts were illiterate. Through inscriptions carved into stone or tablets of various material the author conveys some interesting points about Celtic life and practices, particuarly superstition and religion.

Its full of little gems, such as first hand accounts of human sacrifice. Usually a poor criminal was chosen. The unlucky person could be kept imprisoned for 5 years before being impaled on a pole in honor of the gods. If that wasnt enough of an indignity he/she was then tossed onto a bonfire. Then there was the Celtic habit of proudly displaying the severed heads of tribal foes in their Gallic homes that was only brought to an end by Roman rule. If that doesnt wet the appetite you get to learn about funeral rites where once tradition dictated even beloved subordinates of the deceased may be thrown into the fire to appease the Gods (hence unpopularity and a high rank were truly worthy attributes to aspire to). It was also a requirement at council meetings that a bard be present for it appears that only the soothing music of bard could keep tempers under control. As one turns the pages, so much more one learns that both shocks and enlightens the senses.

All up these images of Celtic culture above are probably not ones that readily come to mind. But they are just as much a part of Celtic society as the admirable art and craft works, peaceful images of druids wandering around prosperous villages or warriors just fending off enemies.

All up, it makes for a nice informative and lucid read about all facets of Celtic life from across the regions of Gaul, Britian and Ireland. Now if only they could make is more accessible by significantly lowering the price to match the size - it would be just perfect.

A great source for Celtic history
Has all the major ancient sources on the Celts translated into easily readable English. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Immigrant Women
Fast shipping and book was in excellent condition for a used book. Thanks, Five stars.

Superb book!!
I read this book while I was doing a research paper on immigrant women and their experiences in America and I was quite impressed by the amount of information it has. Unlike some books on this subject I've read, it has a nice flow to it and it reads well. I really liked the way the author organized it because it follows the immigrant women from the old country to America and very nicely describes their transition into Americans and the struggles they faced while doing this. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in this subject. ... Read more

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The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners' national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people—white women and slaves—and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise.

Wartime scarcity of food, labor, and soldiers tested the Confederate vision at every point and created domestic crises to match those found on the battlefields. Women and slaves became critical political actors as they contested government enlistment andtax and welfare policies, and struggled for their freedom. The attempt to repress a majority of its own population backfired on the Confederate States of America as the disenfranchised demanded to be counted and considered in the great struggle over slavery, emancipation, democracy, and nationhood. That Confederate struggle played out in a highly charged international arena.

The political project of the Confederacy was tried by its own people and failed. The government was forced to become accountable to women and slaves, provoking an astounding transformation of the slaveholders' state. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War.

Customer Reviews (5)

For the hearts and mind of the public
I am neither an academe or a southerner. I am still struggling with this book.

It is an antithetical assessment of the socio political topic of the place of the Civil War in American cultural history. In addressing the role of the southern underclasses effected by secessionist radicalism, the author has declared their own bias to feminism, and new social reformist historicism. That doesn't illegitimise the book, but it makes it hard to weigh in the balance of so much other material that favors other interpretations.

The authors position that secession evolved as an economic political struggle engendered by the cotton gentry to protect their interests I agree with unequivocably. However this polemic miscarries when it tries to downplay the commitment of the "political majority" to the southern cause. This limited political majority is criticised as being non-representative of most people in the south. True. But in 1860, the same can be said for the entire United States. The criticism is historically specious.

It's barnstorming arguments of this ilk that gets this good book in trouble. When the author tells the tale of minority resistence or loss of faith in the Confederate cause the book goes well; when the subject turns to a broader view of American history it falters.

Social entitlement is an overarching issue in our history. The Civil War was only about this struggle indirectly. The crisis of political union opened some doors, with the end of legalized slavery. But because Americans cared little about true reform, it would take another 5 generations of struggle and debate to democratize our society into giving true equal political rights, regardless to gender or race.

I've been reading the civil war for 45 years. People who express eye-popping surprise at this book just haven't done enough reading. They don't understand the historiography. The author hasn't refuted anything. She doesn't understand the historiography either.

Altering our national mythology about the Civil War
"Confederate Reckoning" is one the most outstanding histories of this nation ever written.Drawing on massive public and private documents, Stephanie McCurry has discovered truths about the Confederacy that should stand this nation on its ear.The Civil War was indeed about slavery - and only that.It was waged by a class of men who conscripted small tenant farmers then used them as cannon fodder while protecting their own plantations and economics from the disasters that war produced.The Confederate government allowed merchants to gouge soldiers' wives who, with the support of planters' wives, fought back.As "Regulators" women staged food raids on warehouses, and confronted the corrupt, venal Confederate MALE government.The Confederacy existed for only white MEN, and their utter disregard for their lower class allies is hereby exposed.The mythology about the "loyal" slaves is also dispelled, and Dr. McCurry has given us such powerful insight into the self interest of the plantation owning ruling class that every self respecting Southerner who once flew the stars and bars but was not of that class ought to haul that tattered ensign down and stomp on it with both feet.Ordinary men and women meant nothing in this equation.They fought, starved, suffered, and died for the preservation of those who continued to exploit them after Reconstruction.This book destroys the dewey eyed nostalgia for the South and squarely confronts the greed and destruction a handful of rich people visited on a nation - and on their own people.

Absolutely Gripping!
I'm a voracious reader of history, and this is at the top of my all-time best list.I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading!Whoever said "truth is stranger than fiction" must have had this book in mind.The role of women and African-Americans in the Confederacy has never been told his this!And the speeches and writings of the secessionists are just incredible to read.What were these people thinking?Every high school history student should be required to read this book....and every adult too, if that were possible.I'd give it 6 stars if I could.

A fascinating look on the true face of the Confederate States of America
Good history teaches readers about the past, excellent history offers perspective on the present. By this standard, Stephanie McCurry's //Confederate Reckoning// surely achieves excellence. Against the library produced over 150+ years since the "Lost Cause" attempting to rewrite Confederate realities, McCurry offers a carefully researched and well-grounded frontal assault, examining secession's causes and actualities. She quickly disposes of the claims that the war was really about anything other than slavery, demonstrating that fanciful patinas such as "states rights"merely meant linguistic obfuscation of that brutal reality. Through numerous sources, she shows that the "property" that made up their "peculiar institution" was first and foremost in the minds of the men who tore the Union asunder.

Yet McCurry goes further, examining the profoundly anti-democratic nature of the Confederate enterprise, going all the way back to the planter elites' manipulation and fraud in passing secession in several states. The contradictions inherent in the South's efforts from the beginning often astound: as the South argued for "essential liberty," it was the first to conscript its citizens and imposed onerous in-kind taxes. At the same time, the slaver class insisted that their "property" was sacrosanct, and must remain beyond the government's reach.

To argue for the Confederacy's anti-democratic nature, McCurry points both to the status of African Americans and women as both considered devoid of political authority. While her claim is accurate, this seems an odd conflation: in its treatment of women the South was similar to much of the rest of the west as well as the North, while in its candid assertions of the positive attributes of slavocracy, the South was in modern history unique. Nonetheless, the South's troubles with politically assertive women, including several riots led by women, illuminates a fascinating lost bit of history. Nor were these the only cases of the deep segregation in the Confederacy along various lines. For example, McCurry doesn't consider the South's refusal to bury Jewish war dead in military cemeteries.

As modern citizens decry government actions and hearken back to an ideal that never was, so too did the South assert a wish to return to a fictional revolutionary era utopia. This desire allowed them to not only ignore the long odds against their success, just as Tea Partiers fail to consider their program's (such as it is) absurd contradictions. While on occasion she allows her overwrought prose to get the best of her, McCurry shines a light on the South's brutal reality and thus encourages us to cast a cold analytical eye on our own.

Reviewed by Jordan Magill

A fascinating look on the true face of the Confederate States of America


Good history teaches readers about the past, excellent history offers perspective on the present.By this standard, Stephanie McCurry's "Confederate Reckoning" surely achieves excellence.Against the library produced over 150+ years since the "Lost Cause" attempting to rewrite Confederate realities, McCurry offers a carefully researched and well grounded frontal assault, examining secession's causes and actualities.She quickly disposes of the claims that the war was really about anything other than slavery, demonstrating that fanciful patinas such as "states rights" are merely meant linguistic obfuscation that brutal reality.Through numerous sources, she shows that the "property" that made up their "peculiar institution" was first and foremost in the minds of the men who tore the Union asunder.

Yet McCurry goes further, examining the profoundly anti-democratic nature of the Confederate enterprise, going all the way back to the planter elites manipulation and fraud in passing succession in several states.The contradictions inherent in the South's efforts from the beginning often astound: as the South argued for "essential liberty" it was the first to conscript its citizens and imposed onerous in-kind taxes.At the same time, the slaver class insisted that their "property" was sacrosanct, and must remain beyond the government's reach.

To argue for the Confederacy's anti-democratic nature, McCurry points both to the status of African Americans and women as both considered devoid of political authority.While her claim is accurate, this seems an odd conflation: in its treatment of women the South was similar to much of the rest of the west as well as the North, while in its candid assertions of the positive attributes of slavocracy, the South was in modern history unique.Nonetheless, the South's troubles with politically assertive women, including several riots led by women, illuminates a fascinating lost bit of history.Nor were these the only cases of the deep segregation in the Confederacy along various lines.For example, McCurry doesn't consider the South's refusal to bury Jewish war dead in military cemeteries.

As modern citizens decry government actions and hearken back to an ideal that never was, so to the South asserted a wish to return to a fictional revolutionary era utopia.This desire allowed them to not only ignore the long odds against their success, just as Tea Partiers fail to consider their program's (such as it is) absurd contradictions. While on occasion she allows her overwrought prose to get the best of her, McCurry shines a light on the South's brutal reality and thus encourages us to cast a cold analytical eye on our own.
... Read more

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This series provides a detailed examination of one of the most disasterous wars in history. Packed with information, photographs and maps. Timelines and quotes put events in context and help to personalise them. For ages 10-16 years. ... Read more