The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020 reignited a passionate nationwide debate over Confederate memorials and flags as symbols of white supremacy in our public landscape. Controversies about Confederate monuments, however, have overshadowed more consequential battles over Civil War memory taking place in American politics, popular culture, and civil society today. Integrating the voices of Civil War historians, public historians, and scholars of contemporary America, They Are Dead and Yet They Live explores the use (and abuse) of Civil War memory in the modern era, from the Civil War Centennial and the civil rights era through the political turmoil of the present day. Moving the conversation of Civil War memory beyond Confederate monuments to crucial debates about the Civil War's usefulness as a frame for understanding America's recent struggles, these essays show how Civil War memory is as politically urgent and socially relevant today as it was a half century ago.
John M. Kinder is a professor of history and American studies at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran and World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age. Jennifer M. Murray is an assistant professor of history and the director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University. She is the author of On a Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013 and The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861.
Acknowledgments Introduction The Governor and the Palmetto Patriots John M. Kinder and Jennifer M. Murray I. Lost Causes Chapter 1 To Understand Where You Are Going, Remember Where You Have Been: Reconstruction's Reverberations in Twenty-first Century America Brooks D. Simpson Chapter 2 The Republican Party, the Lost Cause, and the Transformation of American Politics Tim Galsworthy Chapter 3 Racist Politics and Civil War Memory Adam H. Domby II. Reclamation Projects Chapter 4 The Politics of Civil War Memory in America's Military: The Battle to Rename Nine U.S. Army Bases Jennifer M. Murray Chapter 5 Freedom on the Fringes: The Civil War and Civil Rights at Camp Nelson Steven T. Phan Chapter 6 Ghosts of Atchison: The Lynching of George Johnson Joshua Wolf III. Consuming Memory Chapter 7 Confederates in the Record Cabinet: Civil War Memory and the Historical Turn in Modern Country Music Joseph Thompson Chapter 8 Love is a Battlefield: Civil War Memory in Modern Romance Novels Sarah Handley Cousins Chapter 9 Dixie Chic: Hoodies and Embodying Confederate Exceptionalism Nicole Maurantonio IV. Civil War Memory in the Age of Black Lives Matter Chapter 10 "This battle was fought because Black Lives Matter": How Black Lives are (or aren't) remembered at Gettysburg Scott Hancock Chapter 11 The Black Confederate Myth and Civil War Memory in the Trump Era Kevin M. Levin V. The Next Civil War Chapter 12 The Confederate Battle Flag's Symbolic Shorthand: Appropriation, Dissemination and Proliferation by US-Based White Supremacists in 21st-Century America Brett A. Barnett Chapter 13 Dylann Roof's Civil Wars John M. Kinder Epilogue "Wow, That Was a Big Mistake" Jennifer M. Murray and John M. Kinder Timeline of Key Events from the Civil War Centennial to 2024
"This is a book of history like few others-a bold step in the evolution of our understanding of the Civil War. Courageous and sometimes provocative, these essays push us to consider the past in the present-how the tendrils of myth and memory have touched every corner of our social and political community and shape the everyday conversation we have about the nature and future of our nation."-John Hennessy, National Park Service historian (retired) and author of Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas "Filled with extraordinary research and superb writing, They Are Dead and Yet They Live provides a necessary reckoning with the power the American Civil War still holds over contemporary politics. Moving beyond the well-trod subject of Confederate monuments, the essays cover a range of topics, from renaming U.S. military bases to romance novels, reminding us along the way that the battles to control and leverage the war's meaning continue to have profound and sometimes even deadly consequences."-Caroline E. Janney, author of Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation "Brilliantly argued with passion and conviction, They Are Dead and Yet They Live is a timely and provocative reminder of the profound ways the memory of the Civil War influences present-day America. A powerful and riveting read, the book helps explain our recent political and cultural life."-Ty Seidule, author of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
