Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten

Description

More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war —why it was fought, what was won, what was lost— not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. In an engaging and accessible survey, Gary W. Gallagher guides readers through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how these stories have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times.

Description

Describes how the depiction of the Civil War in motion pictures and works of art distorts the reality of the war, often emphasizing how the South fought for an admirable but hopeless cause and minimizing the Union effort to hold the republic together. More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war--why it was fought, what was won, what was lost--not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. Too often those portrayals overlook many of the very ideas that motivated the generation that fought the war. In an engaging and accessible survey, Civil War historian Gary Gallagher guides readers through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how they have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times. The most influential perspective for the Civil War generations, says Gallagher, is almost entirely absent from the Civil War stories being told today. Gallagher argues that popular understandings of the war have been shaped by four traditions that arose in the nineteenth century and continue to the present: the Lost Cause, in which Confederates are seen as having waged an admirable struggle against hopeless odds; the Union Cause, which frames the war as an effort to maintain a viable republic in the face of secessionist actions; the Emancipation Cause, in which the war is viewed as a struggle to liberate 4 million slaves and eliminate a cancerous influence on American society; and the Reconciliation Cause, which represents attempts by northern and southern whites to extol "American" virtues and mute the role of African Americans.

First Sentence

On October 4, 1993, a full house at Washington's national Theatre watched the world premiere of 'Gettysburg', a Turner Pictures film based on Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel 'The Killer Angels'.

Subjects

Series Statement

• The Steven and Janice Brose lectures in the Civil War era