American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era - Softcover

David W. Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University.

“The ghosts of the Civil War never leave us, as David Blight knows perhaps better than anyone, and in this superb book he masterfully unites two distant but inextricably bound events with insightful dissection of the works of four of our best writers, writers obsessed with coming to terms with our original sin.”―Ken Burns

“David Blight has written a searching and suggestive book.”―Andrew Delbanco, New York Review of Books

“This book is several things, suggests Blight, but he hits it best when he characterizes it as a ‘discussion of four Americans in search of their country’s history.’ In doing so, he gives us more than a history lesson: he presents an introspective journey into America’s most complex and enigmatic historical event through the minds of four exceptional storytellers. He offers us the opportunity to revisit a monumental tragedy and thereby invites us to probe its meaning. If we do, we will not only be reacquainted with a defining American moment but we will also learn more about who America is, and why.”―James T. Crouse, Times Higher Education

“David W. Blight’s richly interpretive American Oracle contextualizes the sentimentalized celebration of the Civil War in the early 1960s within the tense realities of the civil rights era and the Cold War. Blight unravels the complexities of Civil War memory and meaning at a time when most white Americans considered restoration of the Union, not emancipation, as the war’s grand result.”―John David Smith, Charlotte Observer

“As the sesquicentennial of the Civil War (2011–15) begins, historian Blight examines how we handled the centennial, which occurred at the infancy of the civil rights movement, and the persistent questioning about all the elements that were at the heart of the nation-rending civil conflict. History and great literature blend beautifully as Blight conducts his examination of the works of four writers―Robert Penn Warren, southern-born novelist; Bruce Catton, historian and journalist; Edmund Wilson, literary critic; and James Baldwin, northern-born essayist and race critic―providing background and context for their works and their views of the centennial and all its commercialism and hypocrisy. From their different perspectives, the four offer ‘a way of understanding the Civil War both as something very American and as an event in a larger human drama.’ Blight explores Warren’s straightforward look at the racism at the heart of the war and the continued hypocrisy of southern commemorations, Catton’s cold-eyed examination of the cost of war, Wilson’s deconstruction of the war as a unifier of the nation, and Baldwin’s chastisement of American racism. Throughout, Blight explores the mythology that came out of the Civil War and the sense of American redemption that did not include any examination of the tragedies of racism and slavery.”―Vanessa Bush, Booklist (starred review)

“Overall a valuable contribution to historical understanding.”―D. Schaefer, Choice

“This is a distinctive addition to the books about the Civil War and how we view it on the conflict’s 150th anniversary.”―Publishers Weekly

“Truly a tour de force... intellectual history and criticism at the highest level, told with passion and artistry.”―Fitzhugh Brundage, author of The Southern Past

“Perceptive, eloquent, and timely, Blight’s book should find a wide and appreciative audience.”―Gary Gallagher, author of The Union War

“The Civil War has given us not only great history, literature, and art, but also great works of thought. David Blight enriches this canon by probing the war’s power to haunt and inspire every generation. American Oracle is intellectual history at its best―deep terrain, mined by a scholar who brings gems to the page.”―Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic