Review: Williams, A People's History of the Civil War (2005)

[truepenny]

A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom by David Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Socialist-lens history of the American Civil War, with particular attention paid to how many white people in the South actually DIDN'T want secession and how many white people in the North DIDN'T want war, but also a good chapter on what Black people were willing to do to gain their freedom. Also a chapter on the genocide of the Native Americans that kept going strong between 1861 and 1865. And points out that after the war, the same white people were in power both North and South that had been in power before.



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Comments

[oracne]

This sounds excellent. Have you read THE AMERICAN SLAVE COAST? It's massive but extremely illuminating.

[truepenny]

I have not. I will have to look for it!

[oracne]

I love the way it ties together so much about how slavery still affects our current economics and racist social structures.