Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Foundations: Nationalism in the Antebellum American South
2. Dreams: Southern Nationalism before Nationhood
3. The Pinch: American Nationalism in Crisis
4. Definitions: Confederate Citizenship and National Identity in
1861
5. War: Suffering, Sacrifice, and the Trials of Nationalism
Conclusion
List of abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Paul Quigley is James I. Robertson, Jr. Associate Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Virginia Tech University.
"[O]utstanding...[O]ne of the most textured accounts of Southern
nationalism to date...This book will be profitably read by scholars
of the American South and the Civil War era as well as anyone
interested in the nature of modern nationalism."--The Historian
"Paul Quigley's well-researched work enriches historians'
understanding of Southern nationalism in the Civil War era...Within
Quigley's chronologically and topically organized study, the author
places white Southerners' understanding of nationhood in a
transatlantic context... Quigley has surely written an astute
study...[and his] work is a valuable addition to the scholarly
literature on Confederate and Atlantic World nationalism, the Civil
War era, and the
South."--The North Carolina Historical Review
"By examining the social, political, and cultural peripheries of
southern nationalism, Paul Quigley offers new insight to the
transnational shaping of southern identity...Quigley's analysis of
southern nationalism demonstrates that it was very much an active
and fluid process that took years to form, solidify, and
grow...[Quigley's] study give greater understanding to the complex
interactions between ideas, sentiments, and nations that fostered
an evolving,
Confederate national identity."--Southern Historian
"With this book, Paul Quigley makes an impressive contribution to
the study of Civil War nationalism. This excellent study deserves a
wide readership and belongs on syllabi for courses on the South,
the Civil War, and nationalism."--Frank Towers, Journal of Southern
History
"Paul Quigley provides the clearest and most insightful study of
southern nationalism to date. In observing both the paths taken and
those avoided, Quigley reveals the dynamism inherent in
nationalism."--Aaron Sheehan-Dean, American Historical Review
"Paul Quiqley examines an old issue--the nature of the southern
nationalism--through a new and somewhat improved wide-angle
lens...Shifting Grounds strikingly recaptures the emotional and
visceral side of topics that have too often been treated in a
highly abstract fashion."--George C. Rable, , The Journal of
American History
"Paul Quigley engages the topic of Confederate nationalism within a
spacious analytical context that begins in the 1840s and extends
across the Atlantic. This important and original book sheds
considerable light on the process by which white southerners forged
a sense of Confederate identity."--Gary W. Gallagher, author of The
Confederate War
"This masterful book makes sense of how the South's ambition for
nationhood in the 1860s resonated with the shared resentments and
common dreams already embedded in its history and culture. Hundreds
of books dwell on how this long, cruel war was fought; Paul Quigley
helps us understand why it was fought."--Don H. Doyle, University
of South Carolina
"From the opening pages of this carefully crafted and judiciously
nuanced study, when a Rebel soldier cites Edmund Burke in his
letters home, we are given brilliant insights into the hearts, but
especially the minds of the Old South. Quigley's deft talent for
clarity and context affords readers vivid appreciation of the pull
of nationhood in nineteenth century America, which led to the rise
and fall of the Confederate project. Shifting Grounds shines a
bright light on ideology's role in social change and takes to task
those who fail to take seriously those key political moments when
ideas rearrange events in dramatic and dangerous ways. The
implications for
what Quigley calls 'the intractable problems of nationalism'
reverberate today."--Catherine Clinton, Queen's University
Belfast
"Finally! We at last have a book that anchors Confederate
nationalism in the viscera, in the hearts and minds of the people
who believed they were fighting for it. In Shifting Grounds,
Quigley takes us to the very heart of what the Confederacy thought
it was."--Stephen Berry, author of All That Makes a Man: Love and
Ambition in the Civil War South
"A thorough, original, and revealing study that situates southern
nationalism in an intellectual environment shaped by the shifting
currents of nineteenth-century world thought."--Andre M. Fleche,
Civil War History
"A valuable study of nationalism in the South as a concept, an
emotion, and a problem. The book is both theoretical and practical,
balanced and insightful. Quigley's study asks new questions. Rather
than debate about the strength or weakness of Confederate
nationalism, he looks at how it was expressed, shaped, and affected
by events."--Paul Escott, Civil War Book Review
"Quigley explores how white southerners of the Civil War era
understood and made sense of their own conflicted loyalties to
state, region, and nation."--Matthew C. Hulbert, Journal of the
Civil War Era
"A deft interpretive synthesis of the rich historiography on
southern nationalism, punctuated by keen insights derived from
Quigley's extensive research in manuscript sources. He seeks to
integrate the study of the Confederacy--its origins, development,
and demise--into modern scholarship on nineteenth-century European
nationalism."--Elizabeth R. Varon, The Virginia Magazine of History
and Biography
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