How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

Description

Named one of The Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction While the
North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a “new
birth of freedom,” Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that
democracy’s blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained
the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a
natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the
West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American
War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The South
and West equally depended on extractive industries-cotton in the former and
mining, cattle, and oil in the latter-giving rise a new birth of white male
oligarchy, despite the guarantees provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by expansion. To reveal
why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the
American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven
into the nation’s fabric and identity. At the nation’s founding, it was the
Eastern “yeoman farmer” who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution.
After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy,
singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as
from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late
nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common
ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and
World War II, the region’s influence grew. “Movement Conservatives,” led by
westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to
embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology
of the Confederacy. Richardson’s searing book seizes upon the soul of the
country and its ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunity to all.
Debunking the myth that the Civil War released the nation from the grip of
oligarchy, expunging the sins of the Founding, it reveals how and why the Old
South not only survived in the West, but thrived. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (February 8, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 019758179X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 97
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.36 x 0.56 x 5.54 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #29,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #81 in History & Theory of Politics #82 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism #95 in Discrimination & Racism
• #81 in History & Theory of Politics
• #82 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism