Reporting from the SHA: Defining Defeat—Three Approaches to Making Sense of Loss and the Confederate Experience

Reporting from the SHA: Defining Defeat—Three Approaches to Making Sense of Loss and the Confederate Experience

Historians had long analyzed the context of Confederate defeat during Reconstruction and the creation of the Lost Cause in the years after Reconstruction ended. This panel at the 2018 Southern Historical Association demonstrated that there are more avenues for historians to unpack the meanings of Confederate defeat and the building of the Lost Cause. The panelists were Amy L. Fluker (University of Mississippi), Ann L. Tucker (University of North Georgia), and Sarah K. Bowman (Columbus State University).

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Romanticizing Myths: the Role of Pop Culture in Civil War History

Romanticizing Myths: the Role of Pop Culture in Civil War History

About a month ago I attended Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede in Gatlinburg, TN - fully expecting to be horrified by what might ensue. But after I left I was hesitant to apply too much criticism to something that advertises itself simply as a dinner show and is very clearly meant to exist in the realm of imagination and exaggeration.

Recent events, however, have convinced me that ending the myths that endure from the Civil War is not simply the job of historians.

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