Civil War Canon: Sites of Confederate Memory in South Carolina (Civil War America)

In this expansive history of South Carolina's commemoration of the Civil War era, Thomas J. Brown uses the lens of place to examine the ways that landmarks of Confederate memory have helped white southerners negotiate their shifting political, social, and economic positions. By looking at prominent sites such as Fort Sumter, Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery, and the South Carolina statehouse, Brown reveals a dynamic pattern of contestation and change. He highlights transformations of gender norms and establishes a fresh perspective on race in Civil War remembrance by emphasizing the fluidity of racial identity within the politics of white supremacy.

Despite the conservative ideology that connects these sites, Brown argues that the Confederate canon of memory has adapted to address varied challenges of modernity from the war's end to the present, when enthusiasts turn to fantasy to renew a faded myth while children of the civil rights era look for a usable Confederate past. In surveying a rich, controversial, and sometimes even comical cultural landscape, Brown illuminates the workings of collective memory sustained by engagement with the particularity of place.

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Published: United States, 1 February 2018

Format: Paperback / softback, 376 pages

Age Range: 0+

Other Information: 33 halftones, 2 maps

Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.1 centimeters (0.59 kg)

Writer: Brown, Thomas J.

About the AuthorThomas J. Brown has taught at the University of South Carolina since 1996.

ReviewsA fine history of the people and landmarks of South Carolina that stand as edifices to both the Confederate past and what this past meant for communities enduring the throes of modernization"". - Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians

""Demonstrates the profound discontinuities of Confederate memory in South Carolina"". - Journal of American Culture

""A well-timed study. . . . Extremely well written and engaging"". - Journal of Southern History

""An excellent contribution to the still-fertile field of Civil War memory and offers timely insight into the South Carolina of June 17, 2015"". - Journal of American History