ePub The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Confederacy by J. Stephen Lang in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. The Confederacy--maybe not exactly what you thought it wasBy J. B. FEATHERSTONLots of interesting tidbits about the Confederacy; some of the major players like Davis; Beauregard; Jackson; etc. but also a view from the firing line as Johnny Reb viewed the war and how he spent his time.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. good readBy Customerthis was an enjoyable book for me. easy read. kept my interest was able to look up deals later. Love it.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Expediency and the Moral Abnegation of the Fundamental Precepts of American DemocracyBy Herbert L CalhounAs usual; the "Idiot's Guide" is more than just a "quick and dirty" way to get to the bottom of matters: It gets to the "true skinny;" and in doing so; it then gets the story right without polemics; pseudo-patriotic groveling or obvious political slants. Here the reader will find a surprisingly economic; fact-rich; compact; and systematic rendition of American history told from the vantage point of the Confederacy. All the heroes and villains are present; with a storyline that has the full ring of truth.The authors first outline chapter-wise what they wish to tell us; then tell us; and finally summarize in bullet fashion what they have told us. As a result; the serious reader can be sure that even though he is getting a "stripped-down version" of history told through the eyes and the mindset of the Confederacy; it is not a version in which the substance itself has suffered; and is one told with such a flair that the substance is likely to stick to the brain.The underlying truth of this book is that the story of the Confederacy; viewed in retrospect and as a complete picture; looks more like the essence of the "real" story of American history itself; writ large -- that is to say of what "America actually was;" (and "has become"); rather than the accepted version; which is "how we wish the flattering side of our history to be seen." Short of a counter-cultural rendition such as the likes of that of Charles Beard or Howard Zinn; this condensed version told from the South's vantage point; just may be the most unadorned and honest version of American history we are likely to get anywhere.One of the unintended consequences of telling the unadorned truth as it is told here is that the dark moral shadow that seems to have cast a spell over American democracy and the American way of life throughout its existence (including up until present times); become much more clear and focussed. What we see here through the eyes of the Confederacy is not so much the dark side of American history (as many would like for us to believe is true only of white southerners); but a more nuanced and honest portrait of how we became; writ large; the present morally crippled nation we have become.This book makes crystal clear that the true spirit of 1776 was not so much that of forging a new nation built on the precepts of freedom and democracy; as much as it was about how to pragmatically conquer a sprawling continent with an excess of cheap uncultivated land and a shortage of available labor with which to cultivate it? And this was especially true in the South. The answer of course was not a morally tidy one: It was to enslave everything in sight -- the horses; mules; oxen and as many people; white native American; and black; as possible. Knowingly enslaving people; was exactly the opposite of the fundamental precepts preached by our founding fathers of freedom and democracy. And at the time they ignored these precepts; they knew very well that they had signed a pact with the devil that would come back to haunt us. The first fifteen presidents of the U.S. were either southerners or sympathized with the southern position on the issue of slavery. None tried to do anything about slavery and were all aware of the contradictions that slavery represented. Even Lincoln; the sixteenth president and an abolitionist; did not see his moral obligation to the precepts of the Constitution as being higher than the expediency of keeping the nation together. We have since come to see this moral defection as a virtue; but making a virtue out of necessity is a trick we as a nation have become quite adept at.Thus; arguably; America's original sin was not so much the enslavement of blacks in the south in particular; as it was learning how to compromise our moral principles as a nation; more generally; whenever it proved convenient to do so; and then finding clever ways to deny this fact and even cleverer ways to further shirk the responsibility for having done it. Unfortunately; the strategy for covering up moral lapses in the early days of the nation's existence became our most enduring national signature: It was the strategy of producing after the fact; a smokescreen of ideological justifications to cover up and deny all our intentional moral failings; that we have become experts at.How many times since slavery; have we willingly sacrificed our nation's moral principles on the altar of illicit claims and expediency? [The many broken treaties with Native Americans? The treachery of the Emancipation Proclamation? The Dred Scott Act? The repeated denial of civil rights to blacks? The internment of Japanese Americans? My Lai? Abu Grahib? The Patriot Act? The Obama tax compromise?]Maintaining slavery so that the wealthy planters of the South could survive in style proved to be much more alluring than living up to the Jeffersonian precept of "all men are created equal." The immoral cracks created by this perfidy were then haphazardly covered over with the ideology of racism; which became (and remains) the nation's primary unwritten law and ethos. In the same way; Barack Obama's compromise that gave the top 2% of wealthy Americans another windfall of $700 billion dollars in undeserved tax cuts; proved to be more important than limiting the tax breaks only to those likely to spend it to help improve the economy for the common good? Obama's cowardice was covered up after the fact by the convenient excuse that it was a compromise in which no one got exactly what they wanted. (Well; la-de-da!)In both cases; the problem was not that a compromise was made; but with the fact that it yielded to illicit claims that in addition to violating established moral precepts; also was not in the nation's best interest. Freedom and democracy do not admit slavery any more than the precept of protecting the common good admits giving a windfall to the rich who will do little or nothing to spur the economy?Have we not become a nation that can defect on its moral principles and obligations at the drop of a hat; and then quickly produce; after the fact; (as the Confedracy did) a perfectly clear rationale that excuses even our worse crimes? A lively and fact packed read. Four stars.