Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory

Format: Paperback Language: English ISBN: 0674008197 ISBN13: 9780674008199 Release Date: March 2002 Publisher: Belknap Press Length: 528 Pages Weight: 1.35 lbs. Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.3" Winner of the Bancroft PrizeWinner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln PrizeWinner of the Merle Curti awardWinner of the Frederick Douglass Prize No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In the war's aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America's national reunion.In 1865, confronted with a ravaged landscape and a torn America, the North and South began a slow and painful process of reconciliation. The ensuing decades witnessed the triumph of a culture of reunion, which downplayed sectional division and emphasized the heroics of a battle between noble men of the Blue and the Gra