The author of Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913 (1988), Dr. Gaines M. Foster is the Murphy J. Foster Professor of History Emeritus at Louisiana State University, and this new book gives us a collection of eight essays—some previously published and some written just for this volume—that deal with the predominant trends of intellectual thought on various aspects of the effect of the Civil War on the South in the post bellum era.

Some of the papers will prove primarily of interest to academic scholars, dealing with questions of influences on his writing, which has often been contrary to the views of such scholars as C. Vann Woodward, Bell Wiley, Thomas Connelly, James McPherson, and David Blight. But other essays address complicated questions of deeper historical interest.

The papers are:

• “Woodward and Southern Identity”

• “Guilt Over Slavery”

• “Coming to Terms with Defeat in Post-Vietnam and the Post-Civil War South”

• “The Naming of the American Civil War”

• “The Fiery Cross and the Confederate Flag and the Birth (and Rebirth) of Racist Symbolism”

• “The Marble Man, Robert E. Lee, and the Context of Historical Memory”

• “The Solid South and the Nation-State”

• “The Confederate Flag, the Lost Cause, and a Continuing Civil War?”

Dr. Foster concludes that Americans need to re-evaluate the Civil War, as well as how the issues of slavery and racism have caused problems for the United States and its citizens ever since the end of the conflict. Additionally, he argues that “these essays make a case for sectional reconciliation and speculates it is important to remember the limits of the Lost Cause in the years since World War 1”. Foster also argues that today in the U.S., many of former President Donald Trump’s southern followers do not want to fight another Civil War but wish to take back their white Protestant nation. He concludes that the Lost Cause does not clear up significant issues from the past nor “addresses the deep divisions that threaten the nation.”

Foster’s book is extremely well written and permits readers to see how the Lost Cause meaningfully affected the South and the U.S. following the war down to the twenty-first century. Extensively documented from primary sources, this book will help both academics and serious students of the war and post war period better understand the scholarship, but it may be tough going for the more casual reader.

The Limits of the Lost Cause on Civil War Memory is highly recommended for serious students of the war and its ongoing effects on society.

www.nymas.org