Slavery - Emancipation, Abolition & African American Civil War Participation, Slavery - Social Sciences, Confederate States of America - General & Miscellaneous, African Americans - Military History, United States Civil War - Social Aspects, African Ameri

The collapse of the Confederacy

Name: The collapse of the Confederacy
Author: John David Smith
ISBN: 9781570034107

by John David Smith

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Overview

In 1937, in his groundbreaking The Collapse of the Confederacy, the African American historian Charles H. Wesley (1891-1987) took a bold step in rewriting the history of the Confederate South by asserting that the new nation failed because of underlying internal and social factors. Looking beyond military events to explain the Confederacy's demise, Wesley challenged conventional interpretations and argued that, by 1865, the supposedly unified South had "lost its will to fight." Though neglected today by scholars and students of the Civil War, Wesley ranked as one of the leading African American historians, educational administrators, and public speakers of the first half of the twentieth century.

This edition of Wesley's The Collapse of the Confederacy includes a new introduction by John David Smith that examines Wesley's interpretation of Confederate defeat, contextualizes it within contemporary writings, and analyzes its significance for modern scholarship on the experiences of African Americans in the Civil War.

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Booknews

This reprint of the classic 1937 text looks at internal and social factors which led to the demise of the Confederate South. African American historian Wesley argues that the Confederacy lost the war not because of Northern military superiority, but because the South lost its will to fight. The new introduction by John David Smith (history, North Carolina State U.) examines Wesley's ideas within the context of contemporary scholarship. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)