Stephen Berry is associate professor of history at the University of Georgia. He is the author of" House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War" and "All That Makes a Man: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South" and the editor of "Princes of Cotton: Four Diaries of Young Men in the South, 1848-1860" (Georgia).
Weirding the War is an eclectic mix of absorbing essays on the
American Civil War. It shatters conventional paradigms, asking new
questions and offering fresh insights into a war that continues to
fascinate, even obsess, both academic and popular
audiences.--Victoria Bynum "author of The Long Shadow of the Civil
War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies"
Weirding the War proves that there are still many questions left to
be asked and answered about this popular time in American history.
These essays collected by Dr. Stephen Berry expand the boundaries
of what historians have looked at, and bring new ideas to the
forefront of current Civil War thinking.--Kristopher Allen
"Southern Historian"
[Berry's] manifesto-like introduction calls for new questions, new
themes, and new topics that turn upside down what we think we know
about the [Civil War]. . . . The animating force behind these
essays, and the books that will follow, is to nudge students,
buffs, and popular audiences to replace the Civil War's
inspirational story with the darker version.--Joan Waugh "Journal
of Southern History"
Berry and his contributors manage to accomplish their goal and
weird the Civil War. . . . Ironically, it is by breaking Civil War
history from the limitations of the Civil War narrative that we can
introduce twenty-first-century Americans to their counterparts in
the nineteenth century--weird.--Barbara A. Gannon "Journal of
American History"
Emphasizing selfishness and its victims, not sacrifice, the authors
provide insights into the war's cultural and social history by
looking at persons on the margins, oftentimes considered 'weird' by
society's mainstream. . . . Weirding the War matters not because
its characters exhibited oddities or peculiarities, but rather
because of their intensely human, commonplace experiences,
strengths and weaknesses. Their mundane stories remind us of the
'weirdness' of war generally and the connection between individuals
in the past and ourselves.--John David Smith "News & Observer"
Overall, whether in soldier, civilian, or veteran studies, the
future direction of the new military history emanates from Weirding
the War.--Matthew E. Stanley "Register of the Kentucky Historical
Society"
Saying something truly new about the American Civil War seems
impossible, but here is a book that offers an explosion of new
perspectives and insights, often surprising and sometimes
disturbing. Read this book and you will never be able to imagine
again whatever Civil War you imagined before.--Edward L. Ayers
"winner of the Bancroft Prize for In the Presence of Mine Enemies:
The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863"
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