Yael A. Sternhell

Routes of War: The World of Movement in the Confederate South Yael A. Sternhell

Commendation Quotes: Imaginative, innovative, dug from new kinds of research, informed by an international perspective, and written with verve and persuasion, this book delivers a new and lasting analytical narrative of the nature and meaning of emancipation in America and how the Civil War reshaped our moral and spatial imagination. Commendation Quotes: Yael Sternhell has written the most original and innovative study of the creation and ultimate dissolution of Confederate nationalism that has yet appeared. Commendation Quotes: Exploring the concepts of space and movement, Sternhell brings disparate elements of the population into play and reveals patterns even veteran students of the conflict will find fascinating and instructive. Commendation Quotes: This book truly transforms the way we think about the Civil War. In eloquent prose and with exceptional skill, Sternhell makes clear why the wartime movement of the South's people--civilians, slaves, armies--literally shook the South to its foundations. Commendation Quotes: The visual language of people on the move is the "leitmotif" of this splendid book, a major contribution to the historical literature not only of the Civil War but of those catastrophes which followed it. Biographical Note: Yael A. Sternhell is Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Tel Aviv University. Review Quotes: The visual language of people on the move is the "leitmotif" of this splendid book, a major contribution to the historical literature not only of the Civil War but of those catastrophes which followed it.--Jay Winter, Yale UniversityReview Quotes: Yael Sternhell has written the most original and innovative study of the creation and ultimate dissolution of Confederate nationalism that has yet appeared.--James M. McPherson, author of "Battle Cry of Freedom"Review Quotes: Exploring the concepts of space and movement, Sternhell brings disparate elements of the population into play and reveals patterns even veteran students of the conflict will find fascinating and instructive.--Gary W. Gallagher, author of "The Union War"Review Quotes: Imaginative, innovative, dug from new kinds of research, informed by an international perspective, and written with verve and persuasion, this book delivers a new and lasting analytical narrative of the nature and meaning of emancipation in America and how the Civil War reshaped our moral and spatial imagination.--David W. Blight, author of "American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era"Review Quotes: This book truly transforms the way we think about the Civil War. In eloquent prose and with exceptional skill, Sternhell makes clear why the wartime movement of the South's people--civilians, slaves, armies--literally shook the South to its foundations.--W. Fitzhugh Brundage, author of "The Southern Past"Review Quotes: Sternhell has written a pioneering study of the creation and downfall of the Confederacy. This original, imaginative, and persuasive book a must have for any U. S. history collection will transform understanding of the Civil War. The author posits that incessant motion between battlefields, plantations, and other traditional sites of Civil War history shaped the Confederate South and shook the region to its foundations, ultimately transforming it forever.--E. M. Thomas"Choice" (10/01/2012)"Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Table of Contents: List of Maps -- Prologue: Murders and Movements -- 1. Nation Building on the Road -- 2. Armies on the March and the Languages of Motion -- 3. Southerners on the Run -- 4. Dissolution in Motion: The End of the Confederacy -- Epilogue: Memory and Movement -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index. Market Information: A"Choice "Outstanding Academic Title of 2012 Finalist, 2013 Lincoln Prize, Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Co-Winner, 2013 Francis B. Simkins Award, Southern Historical AssociationPublisher Marketing: The Civil War thrust millions of men and women-rich and poor, soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free-onto the roads of the South. During four years of war, Southerners lived on the move. In the hands of Yael A. Sternhell, movement becomes a radically new means to perceive the full trajectory of the Confederacy's rise, struggle, and ultimate defeat. By focusing not only on the battlefield and the home front but also on the roads and woods that connected the two, this pioneering book investigates the many roles of bodies in motion. We watch battalions of young men as they march to the front, galvanizing small towns along the way, creating the Confederate nation in the process. We follow deserters straggling home and refugees fleeing enemy occupation, both hoping to escape the burdens of war. And in a landscape turned upside down, we see slaves running toward freedom, whether hundreds of miles away or just beyond the plantation's gate. Based on a vast array of documents, from slave testimonies to the papers of Confederate bureaucrats to the private letters of travelers from all walks of life, Sternhell unearths the hidden connections between physical movements and their symbolic meanings, individual bodies and entire armies, the reinvention of a social order and the remaking of private lives. Movement, as means of liberation and as vehicle of subjugation, lay at the heart of the human condition in the wartime South. Review Citations:

Choice 10/01/2012 (EAN 9780674064423, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Sternhell, Yael A Yael A. Sternhell is Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Tel Aviv University.