When it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground. Debates over their meaning have sparked legislative battles, courtroom fights, and public protests that sometimes turn destructive. These conflicts have persisted for over a century, but never with today's intensity. In No Common Ground, historian Karen L. Cox examines the rise, preservation, and contestation of Confederate monuments. She explores what these statues meant to their builders and how movements arose to challenge them. Cox traces the forces behind symbols of white supremacy and how antimonument sentiment-suppressed during the Jim Crow era-reemerged with the civil rights movement and grew after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Monument defenders used gerrymandering and heritage laws to block removals, while civil rights activists fought to reclaim public space and history. This second edition includes a new preface tracing developments in the monument conflict since 2020-from George Floyd's murder to the removals, legal battles, and federal actions that followed-revealing a nation still divided, with no common ground in sight.
Karen L. Cox is professor emerita of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
"Engrossing. . . . This clear and thorough account, essential for Southern libraries, is likely to become a standard reference work on its subject. . . . A well-documented history of Confederate monuments and the conflicting views they inspire."-Kirkus Reviews "Essential. . . . Cox, a preeminent scholar of how the South has sought to reimagine and portray itself in the years since the Civil War . . . tracks the origins and spread of the statues and clears up misconceptions about how these sculptures came to liberally pepper our landscape. . . . It is a robust accounting that links spikes in statue building to periods when White Southerners perceived threats to their control over institutions and wanted to reassert their dominance. . . . To read this book is to be reminded again that the history of Confederate statues is not ancient, nor even old."-Washington Post "In her superb contribution to the history of the South, Cox targets the massive influence of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on Southerners in the late 1890s and beyond, especially in the area of monument building. . . . An invaluable study of all-too-frequently misplaced genealogical and regional venerations. Highly recommended for U.S., antebellum, Civil War, African American, and Southern historians and scholars, and for all readers."-Library Journal "To many Americans, the heated debates over Confederate monuments might seem new. But Karen L. Cox, a leading historian of Confederate memory, reminds us in No Common Ground, her brief, excellent overview of Confederate monument history, that these statues have been hotly contested since their inception. Through a swift survey of news reports, speeches, pamphlets, and legislative debates, she shows that in the minds of their Southern white creators and to Black communities, these monuments 'have always been attached to the cause of slavery and white supremacy."-The New Republic "Cox offers an important and accessible history of white supremacist monuments and myths. . . . No Common Ground makes it clear why the contemporary battle over Confederate monuments and public spaces is so fraught. It is an important read for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the conversation."-Journal of Southern History "The definitive history of Confederate monuments and their surrounding controversies . . . . a masterful public-history analysis."-Rebecca Brenner Graham, The Society for U.S. Intellectual History "A detailed, interesting account of the history of Civil War monuments from the postwar period through the era of Jim Crow and on into the 21st Century. . . . Cox has provided a thought-provoking, rich, compelling, and well-timed look at a very timely public debate."-NYMAS Review "No Common Ground stands out . . . the slim volume contains the best answer for the question posed by some in recent years-why should we as a society care about these monuments?"-New Mexico Historical Review "A timely, well-written, and excellent history of Confederate monuments."-Missouri Historical Review "When UNC created the Ferris and Ferris imprint (of which No Common Ground is one of the first books published), it aimed to create 'high-profile, general-interest books about the American South' and this book fits the bill perfectly. Well researched and with clear prose, the book was a pleasure to read...Illustrated with rarely seen pictures of Confederate monuments as points of social conflict, the book is an easy-to-read introduction to the battles over monuments that continue around America-and indeed the world-to this day."-Black Perspectives
