David R. Goldfield

"In this look at some of the historical forces actively at work in today's South, David Goldfield draws pointed, provocative links between the "Lost Cause" mythology that emerged from the chaos of Confederate defeat, the region's reputation for intolerance, and southern evangelical Protestantism." "Goldfield looks at an array of issues from the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemmings controversy to debates over the Confederate flag to the proliferation of African American history museums and monuments in the region. Finally, he recalls his work as a consultant on U.S. Supreme Court cases involving a majority black voting district in North Carolina, as a coauthor of an environmental and economic impact study of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and as a mitigating witness in the sentencing phases of six racially polarizing death penalty cases. His contributions, Goldfield hopes, made history more "real" to people in vocations outside of academia."--Jacket.

"Newcomers to the South often remark that southerners, at least white southerners, are still fighting the Civil War - a strange preoccupation considering that the war formally ended more than 135 years ago and fewer than a third of southerners today can claim an ancestor who actually fought in the conflict. But even if the war is far removed both in time and genealogy, it survives in the hearts of many of the region's residents and often in national newspaper headlines concerning battle flags, racial justice, and religious conflicts. In this sweeping narrative of the South from the Civil War to the present, noted historian David Goldfield contemplates the roots of southern memory and explains how this memory has shaped the modern South both for good and ill.". "He discusses how and why white southern men fashioned the myths of the Lost Cause and the Redemption out of the Civil War and Reconstruction. They shaped a religion to canonize the heroes and reify the events of those fated years. History became both fact and faith. The men mobilized these myths to secure their domination over African Americans and white women, as well as over the South's political and economic systems. Goldfield also recounts how blacks and white women eventually crafted a different, more inclusive version of southern history and how that new vision has competed with more traditional perspectives.". "As Goldfield shows, the battle for southern history, and for the South, continues - in museums, public spaces, books, state legislatures, and the minds of southerners. Given the region's population boom, growing economic power, and political influence, the outcome of this war is more than a historian's preoccupation; it is of national importance. Integrating history and memory, religion, race, and gender, Still Fighting the Civil War will help newcomers, longtime residents, and curious outsiders alike attain a better understanding of the South and each other."--BOOK JACKET.

Region, Race, and Cities presents eleven of Goldfield's best essays - three unseen till now - in one volume, providing an overview of the evolution of southern urban history into a vibrant and legitimate branch of southern history. Goldfield's grasp is extensive. He discusses the economic importance of the South's antebellum towns, the impact of World War II on southern cities, voting rights and black political power, issues of urban policy and quality of life, the survival of southern identity, and much more. Two principles formulated early in his career continue to guide his thinking: first, the importance of southern cities and their similarity to other urban locales in the country, possibly throughout the world; and second, the intimate interactions between the South's cities and the region as a whole.

Shows how the struggles of black southerners to lift the barriers that had historically separated them from their white counterparts not only brought about the demise of white supremacy but did so without destroying the South's unique culture.