The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory

The nostalgia created by and within the intellectual and literary movement of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy has, until now, received relatively little scholarly attention considering the explosion of memory debates in social, political, and cultural studies over the last two decades. The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory addresses this oversight by examining the ways in which white and black southerners used historical material to define and understand themselves - issues that have been the vanguard of recent research in southern history. Taking as its thematic starting point the Confederacy's defeat in 1865, the book builds on the idea that memories are produced out of experience before in turn reshaping it. Using diaries, letters, reminiscences, magazines, fiction and film, The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory illustrates how the creation of the Lost Cause was at once political and emotional, not only reflecting the political, economic and racial interests it served, but also reflecting the genuine desire to compensate for what had been loved and lost.