Dear SEP Families,
Many of the students in Session 2 were already familiar with the idea that facts are interpreted differently based upon who is interpreting them. They particularly liked seeing how changes of interpretation within a specific field occurred over time.
They also appreciated learning about the different interpretations of the War of the Rebellion/War of Emancipation/War Between the States/Civil War/Needless War/War of Northern Aggression/War of Self-Emancipation than those with which they were already familiar. This strengthened their ability to vindicate their own view of the war or opening their minds to new interpretive possibilities.
The students quickly came to understand the reasons due to which historians and other scholars disagree when interpreting the same facts. It was more challenging for them to encounter the actual details of some of those interpretations, particularly those to which many of them had an instinctual aversion. They handled the challenge with a commendable degree of maturity, working together to design posters showing the interpretations of different schools of historiography.
Many of the students in Session 2 were already familiar with the idea that facts are interpreted differently based upon who is interpreting them. They particularly liked seeing how changes of interpretation within a specific field occurred over time.
They also appreciated learning about the different interpretations of the War of the Rebellion/War of Emancipation/War Between the States/Civil War/Needless War/War of Northern Aggression/War of Self-Emancipation than those with which they were already familiar. This strengthened their ability to vindicate their own view of the war or opening their minds to new interpretive possibilities.
The students quickly came to understand the reasons due to which historians and other scholars disagree when interpreting the same facts. It was more challenging for them to encounter the actual details of some of those interpretations, particularly those to which many of them had an instinctual aversion. They handled the challenge with a commendable degree of maturity, working together to design posters showing the interpretations of different schools of historiography.
Resources for Continued Learning
Books
Unionist Historiography
Abolitionist Historiography
Lost Cause Historiography
Reconciliation Historiography
Revisionist Historiography
Neo-Abolitionist Historiography
Self-Emancipation Historiography
Neo-Confederate Historiography
Dr. Zvengrowski’s Interpretation
Places you can Visit Related to Civil War Historiography
Thank you for being a part of SEP 2016 Session Two.
Unionist Historiography
- George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, 10 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1834-1892)
- Also see - Gary W. Gallagher, The Union War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011)
Abolitionist Historiography
- George Washington Williams, A History of Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1888)
- Also see - John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (1985; reprint, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998)
Lost Cause Historiography
- Albert T. Bledsoe, Is Davis a Traitor; or, Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? (Baltimore: Innes & Co., 1866)
- Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates (New York: E. B. Treat & Co., 1867)
- Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: National Publishing Co., 1868)
- Also see - Terry A. Barnhart, Albert Taylor Bledsoe: Defender of the Old South and Architect of the Lost Cause (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011); William C. Davis, The Union that Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs & Alexander H. Stephens (2002); Jack P. Maddex, The Reconstruction of Edward A. Pollard: A Rebel’s Conversion to Postbellum Unionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974)
Reconciliation Historiography
- James Ford Rhodes, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917)
- Woodrow Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829-1889 (New York: Longman, Green, and Co., 1893)
- Also see - Robert Cruden, James Ford Rhodes: The Man, The Historian, and His Work (Cleveland: Cleveland Press of Western Reserve University, 1961)
Revisionist Historiography
- Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927; reprint, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943)
- Also see - Philip G. Auchampaugh, James Buchanan and his Cabinet on the Eve of Secession (Lancaster, PA: Lancaster Press, 1926); and William E. Woodward, Years of Madness: A Reappraisal of the Civil War (1951; reprint, Cleveland: Frontier Press, 1967)
Neo-Abolitionist Historiography
- James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
- Also see - Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)
Self-Emancipation Historiography
- Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, et al., Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Neo-Confederate Historiography
- Allen Tate, Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier (1928; reprint, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960)
- Allen Tate, Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall, A Biographical Narrative (New York: Milton, Balch & Company, 1929)
- Also see - Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, Slavery in Black and White: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders’ New World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and T. A. Underwood, Allen Tate: Orphan of the South (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)
Dr. Zvengrowski’s Interpretation
- Jeffrey L. Zvengrowski, They Stood Like the Old Guard of Napoleon: Jefferson Davis and the Pro-Bonaparte Democrats, 1815-1870 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, forthcoming)
Places you can Visit Related to Civil War Historiography
- Nau Center for Civil War History, University of Virginia
Thank you for being a part of SEP 2016 Session Two.
