William C. Davis, was a professor of history at Virginia Tech and also served as Director of Programs for Virginia Tech's Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. He has written over 40 books and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice. His books won the Jefferson Davis (no relation) Award for Civil War History three times and he is considered to be one of the best scholars on Southern History in the nation.
That being said, he is probably not the favorite author of Southern Mythologists. In "Look Away!," Davis examines the Confederacy from its beginnings and points out the hypocrisies and self-serving of the politicians who created and ran the Confederacy. He shows how the Confederacy went from supposedly being a symbol of "personal rights" to essentially a military dictatorship, where the rights of individual citizens and civil authorities often counted for nothing, where fighting the North was more important than feeding its citizens. In the end, civil order just collapsed. I've often wondered if the southern states had successfully seceded, if that wouldn't have happened anyway. In fact, as Davis relates---with citations---in the end several state governors, and many citizens, were talking about leaving the Confederacy and rejoining the Union. This would have been interesting as, although the South maintained the U.S. Constitution allowed states to secede, the Confederacy Constitution was deliberately written to require that once a state joined it, it was unconstitutional for that state to leave the Confederacy. Talk about "double standards." But that is just one of hundreds of double standards in the Confederacy Davis points out in this book.
The book has 38 pages of citations in small print, so Davis wasn't making the text up as he wrote.
One very interesting passage occurs early on. As you might know, Lincoln was elected president with only 40% of the vote, as the Democratic vote was split. Davis points out---with citations---that this was done deliberately by Southern secessionists who wanted a anti-slavery president elected so the South would have a reason to leave the Union.
Other books have showed how the South was its own worst enemy, but never as well as this one. It makes you wonder why anyone with two-cents of intelligence would look fondly on the Confederacy and I highly recommend it for anyone deeply interested in this period of history.
That being said, he is probably not the favorite author of Southern Mythologists. In "Look Away!," Davis examines the Confederacy from its beginnings and points out the hypocrisies and self-serving of the politicians who created and ran the Confederacy. He shows how the Confederacy went from supposedly being a symbol of "personal rights" to essentially a military dictatorship, where the rights of individual citizens and civil authorities often counted for nothing, where fighting the North was more important than feeding its citizens. In the end, civil order just collapsed. I've often wondered if the southern states had successfully seceded, if that wouldn't have happened anyway. In fact, as Davis relates---with citations---in the end several state governors, and many citizens, were talking about leaving the Confederacy and rejoining the Union. This would have been interesting as, although the South maintained the U.S. Constitution allowed states to secede, the Confederacy Constitution was deliberately written to require that once a state joined it, it was unconstitutional for that state to leave the Confederacy. Talk about "double standards." But that is just one of hundreds of double standards in the Confederacy Davis points out in this book.
The book has 38 pages of citations in small print, so Davis wasn't making the text up as he wrote.
One very interesting passage occurs early on. As you might know, Lincoln was elected president with only 40% of the vote, as the Democratic vote was split. Davis points out---with citations---that this was done deliberately by Southern secessionists who wanted a anti-slavery president elected so the South would have a reason to leave the Union.
Other books have showed how the South was its own worst enemy, but never as well as this one. It makes you wonder why anyone with two-cents of intelligence would look fondly on the Confederacy and I highly recommend it for anyone deeply interested in this period of history.
