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Beyond North and South: Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction

Beyond North and South: Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction revi ew essay Beyond North and South Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction stac ey l. smith U.S. regional history owes its existence, in large part, to the study of the Civil War. Almost as soon as the Civil War ended, historians of the con- flict identified regionalism as a central framework for understanding U.S. national history in the nineteenth century. The notion that the American North and the American South had developed such incompatible regional cultures that they could no longer coexist in the same nation continues to drive the narrative of the Civil War era. But oddly enough, in mak- ing regionalism a central analytical category for understanding the Civil War, historians of the nineteenth century have generally neglected the American West. Despite being the nation’s largest region, with one of its most devel- oped bodies of regional scholarship, the American West plays only fleet - ing or minor roles on the Civil War stage. It enters the story only when it is directly relevant to the concerns of northerners and southerners. In the antebellum era, the West serves as the (often imagined) landscape onto which these northerners and southerners projected their hopes and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of the Civil War Era University of North Carolina Press

Beyond North and South: Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction

Smith, Stacey L.
The Journal of the Civil War Era , Volume 6 (4) – Nov 3, 2016
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright @ The University of North Carolina Press
ISSN
2159-9807

Abstract

revi ew essay Beyond North and South Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction stac ey l. smith U.S. regional history owes its existence, in large part, to the study of the Civil War. Almost as soon as the Civil War ended, historians of the con- flict identified regionalism as a central framework for understanding U.S. national history in the nineteenth century. The notion that the American North and the American South had developed such incompatible regional cultures that they could no longer coexist in the same nation continues to drive the narrative of the Civil War era. But oddly enough, in mak- ing regionalism a central analytical category for understanding the Civil War, historians of the nineteenth century have generally neglected the American West. Despite being the nation’s largest region, with one of its most devel- oped bodies of regional scholarship, the American West plays only fleet - ing or minor roles on the Civil War stage. It enters the story only when it is directly relevant to the concerns of northerners and southerners. In the antebellum era, the West serves as the (often imagined) landscape onto which these northerners and southerners projected their hopes and

Journal

The Journal of the Civil War Era – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Nov 3, 2016

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