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University of North Carolina Press

A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868

A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868

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Historians often assert that Confederate nationalism had its origins in pre-Civil War sectional conflict with the North, reached its apex at the start of the war, and then dropped off quickly after the end of hostilities. Anne Sarah Rubin argues instead that white Southerners did not actually begin to formulate a national identity until it became evident that the Confederacy was destined to fight a lengthy war against the Union. She also demonstrates that an attachment to a symbolic or sentimental Confederacy existed independent of the political Confederacy and was therefore able to persist well after the collapse of the Confederate state. White Southerners redefined symbols and figures of the failed state as emotional touchstones and political rallying points in the struggle to retain local (and racial) control, even as former Confederates took the loyalty oath and applied for pardons in droves.

Exploring the creation, maintenance, and transformation of Confederate identity during the tumultuous years of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Rubin sheds new light on the ways in which Confederates felt connected to their national creation and provides a provocative example of what happens when a nation disintegrates and leaves its people behind to forge a new identity.

Historians often assert that Confederate nationalism had its origins in pre-Civil War sectional conflict with the North, reached its apex at the start of the war, and then dropped off quickly after the end of hostilities. Anne Sarah Rubin argues instead that white Southerners did not actually begin to formulate a national identity until it became evident that the Confederacy was destined to fight a lengthy war against the Union. She also demonstrates that an attachment to a symbolic or sentimental Confederacy existed independent of the political Confederacy and was therefore able to persist well after the collapse of the Confederate state. White Southerners redefined symbols and figures of the failed state as emotional touchstones and political rallying points in the struggle to retain local (and racial) control, Rubin argues, even as former Confederates took the loyalty oath and applied for pardons in droves.



Author: Anne Sarah Rubin
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 08/27/2007
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.27h x 6.20w x 0.78d
ISBN: 9780807855928

About the Author
Rubin, Anne Sarah: - Anne Sarah Rubin is associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is coauthor, with Edward Ayers, of the electronic project Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War: The Eve of War.

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