NF A Woman's War

[major bill]

I bought this and need to put it on the "to read" self or just put it in the reference area. It does kind of look interesting. Anyone suggest I read it?

 

[Karen Lips]

I bought this and need to put it on the "to read" self or just put it in the reference area. It does kind of look interesting. Anyone suggest I read it?

View attachment 189614

Read it!

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

I haven't read but only because I'm backlogged in era books. If it contains first hand accounts, diary and journal excepts and writings by women who lived through the war, would recommend any look inside their war. We get awfully hung up on who had it worst, who somehow deserved misfortune, which side was right, that women's stories become lost. In a barbaric war, Southern women lost and lost and lost. If it had washed over Northern women in the same way, ( disclaimer being we all had an unspeakable war ) would say the same thing.

Wish we heard more on it, and could talk about it without a brawl erupting. Getting informed might be helpful to understanding each other, you know?

 

[CW Watch & Sword Guy]

Does the book talk only about Southern white women, or are the two million southern black women included too?

It's perfectly ok for a book to focus on one race or the other, as their experiences in the war were very different in many ways. But if so, I think the book title should make that clear. Otherwise it becomes part of the long standing practice of equating the white South and Southern whites with "the South" and all Southerners, as if all others who lived there didn't really exist or count as people. It's an easy trap to fall into without evening realizing it.

 

[GS]

Does the book talk only about Southern white women, or are the two million southern black women included too?

It's perfectly ok for a book to focus on one race or the other, as their experiences in the war were very different in many ways. But if so, I think the book title should make that clear. Otherwise it becomes part of the long standing practice of equating the white South and Southern whites with "the South" and all Southerners, as if all others who lived there didn't really exist or count as people. It's an easy trap to fall into without evening realizing it.

@CW Watch Collector the fact its based on diaries and journals, and the image on the cover indicates the race of the women. As with all books, this is likely a cameo, a snapshot in time, not the entire landscape. While I've not read the book, some accounts may include the plight of the black women, and perhaps a Native American, a Mediterranean... on and on. But really.

 

[CW Watch & Sword Guy]

@CW Watch Collector the fact its based on diaries and journals, and the image on the cover indicates the race of the women. As with all books, this is likely a cameo, a snapshot in time, not the entire landscape. While I've not read the book, some accounts may include the plight of the black women, and perhaps a Native American, a Mediterranean... on and on. But really.

Well, I'll admit that I just judged a book by its cover, and its subtitle, which was a mistake. The reference to "the Confederate Legacy" raised unfounded suspicions. Here is the blurb on the book from Amazon, which paints a very different picture:

Enhanced by excerpts from primary documents as well as numerous illustrations, this collection of essays by some of the country's most prominent Civil War historians intends to move women to the center stage of Civil War history. Topics range from the experiences of female slave contrabandists, to the lives of rural refugee women, to the effects of the postwar era on African-American women, to the Civil War's legacy in women's suffrage movements.

Perhaps the publisher had a hand in choosing the subtitle.