Emory M. Thomas

5 1/2 x 8, 150 pages
paper, ISBN 0-87249-780-1, $12.95s

ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume, first published in 1971, has made us look again at the events surrounding the Civil War. The Confederate Southerners likened themselves to the American revolutionaries of 1776. Although both revolutions sought independence and the overthrow of an existing political system, the Confederates battled for a political separation to conserve rather than to create. The result, however, was a transformation of the antebellum traditions they were fighting to preserve.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emory M. Thomas reveived his Ph.D. in history from Rice University in 1966. He taught at Wright State University and is currently professor of history at the University of Georgia. He has authored numerous articles and several books, including Travels to Hallowed Ground: The American War and Peace, 1860—1877 and The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865.

FROM THE BOOK

Southerners in 1860–61 made a revolution—a special kind of revolution. Southerners formed the Confederacy and went to war against the existing status quo in the United States, not to accomplish something new, but to defend something old—something very loosely defined as the "Southern way of life."... The time has come to take a long second look at the Confederate experience—to view it for what it was, a revolution whose scope and ultimate tragedy is still manifest far beyond the American South. This is not a book about bloody battles or silver hidden under the smokehouse floor. This book is about the very unique, very significant revolutionary experience that was the Confederacy.... Americans have not one revolutionary heritage, but two.