David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of many books, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and Race and Reunion (Harvard), which received the Bancroft Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize, among other awards.
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*
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…obsessed with
coming to terms with our original sin.
*Ken Burns*
A searching and suggestive book.
*New York Review of Books*
An introspective journey into America’s most complex and enigmatic
historical event through the minds of four exceptional
storytellers. [Blight] offers us the opportunity to revisit a
monumental tragedy and…to probe its meaning.
*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.
*Charlotte Observer*
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.
*Booklist (starred review)*
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*
During the middle decades of the twentieth century the United
States faced a dual challenge—of civility and memory, each one
race-related. David Blight develops deep biographical links to
connect and explain those troubled years, and does so with
eloquence. He thereby adds a brilliant new aspect to the field of
American memory studies.
*Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and
Culture (Emeritus) at Cornell University and Past President of the
Organization of American Historians*
Blight’s elegant narrative enables us to see the full, enduring,
significance of the Civil War in the consciousness of four major
writers. An outstanding achievement.
*Caryl Phillips, author of Dancing in the Dark*
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*
Overall a valuable contribution to historical understanding.
*Choice*
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