A review by jakewritesbooks
The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South by Bruce Levine

5.0

I went into this book with notions as to slavery's responsibility of the Civil War and came out on the other end not only vindicated but educated and angered. I don't know how you write history better than what Bruce Levine does here, in a shallow 299 pages no less. Levine deftly shapes a narrative of how slavery impacted the southern economy and how its primary benefactors, the planter class, dominated southern culture and politics, up to the point of secession and civil war. Eschewing any attempts at telling a simple story, Levine gives us long looks into everyone from southern aristocracy to poor whites who were ambivalent (at best) about a rich man's war, to slaves who knew full well what was going on as the Union advanced and rejoiced, to the closed doors of both seats of power and their motivations. It blows away any notion that the Civil War was about anything less than slavery and deals honestly with the racism involved in the north and the south and how blacks were caught in the middle.

I said I felt "angered" upon reading this book. It's not because of the writing but the content. Since Jim Crow, there has been a push by white people to deny the causes of the Civil War in an attempt to mollify truth tellers, erase black identity in American history, and forsake white guilt. I have long since lost my patience with those who defend the Confederacy, make bs "states rights" arguments that don't match the light of day, and wave around the Confederate flag (Nope, not referring to it as the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia. You clowns know damn well what it stands for). The Civil War was about keeping black people enslaved. It is a mercy that the south lost. It did not solve all of the nation's problems. But it is the single greatest thing to happen to this Republic since it was established. To suggest any less is to fall into the same trap of erasing the narrative of the racially oppressed. I will be angry but now there's more fuel for the fire. Thanks to Bruce Levine for telling this story so well.