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stacey_the_booknerd 's review for:
I don't even know where to begin with this review, so I guess I'll start with myself.
I have never liked learning about history. It was always incredibly boring to me, and anything learned would go in one ear and out the other. I remember learning about the Civil War in school, but I barely remember what I learned. I knew it had to do with slavery and that the Confederate flag was bad, but that's about all I recalled or ever cared to recall. However, the events of the past year (2020: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol building resulting with the Confederate flag being inside the U.S. Capitol for the first time in American history--technically early 2021) made me stop and re-evaluate not only myself and my own subconscious internalized racial biases that I had been raised to believe, but also to re-evaluate my lack of knowledge regarding the Civil War, racism, and how the Confederate flag ties the two together.
I absolutely loved all of the facts--which felt a little overwhelming to my history-free brain--that I learned in this book. I think my jaw was on the ground for 99.9% of it! I definitely don't remember learning even a fraction of these facts in any history class. I found myself diving into history in a way I have never done before. I just couldn't get enough! Google, highlighting, and note taking took up more time than I spent actually reading the book, but now I feel like I have *in my opinion* an accurate conclusion of the Civil War, or as I will now call it, The War of the Rebellion.
I thought that we (northerners) are all taught the same history. I had NO IDEA that the south would be taught anything different. The fact that the United Daughter's of the Confederacy controlled the education of children regarding the Civl War appalled and disgusted me. I did a lot of research into this group, and I'm left flabbergasted by that organization. I literally have no words regarding what I've learned about them, just shock and awe.
I was also appalled at the history regarding the naming of the U.S. Army bases, and how West Point eventually came to honor the Confederacy --- two more chapters where my jaw was on the ground.
After all that I've read in this book as well as seen throughout my own life, I fully agree with [the historian David Blight who wrote that the Civil War is like "the giant sleeping dragon of American history ever ready to rise up when we do not expect it and strike us with unbearable fire."] I have learned from this book that "history is dangerous. It forms our identity...and if someone challenges a sacred myth, the reaction can be ferocious." I saw that evidenced in this book, as well as the news as of late. My eyes are now fully open to the hateful, rhetoric dragon fire that the Lost Cause myth has been/is continuously spewing throughout the United States, and I cannot thank Ty Seidule enough for that.
I have never liked learning about history. It was always incredibly boring to me, and anything learned would go in one ear and out the other. I remember learning about the Civil War in school, but I barely remember what I learned. I knew it had to do with slavery and that the Confederate flag was bad, but that's about all I recalled or ever cared to recall. However, the events of the past year (2020: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol building resulting with the Confederate flag being inside the U.S. Capitol for the first time in American history--technically early 2021) made me stop and re-evaluate not only myself and my own subconscious internalized racial biases that I had been raised to believe, but also to re-evaluate my lack of knowledge regarding the Civil War, racism, and how the Confederate flag ties the two together.
I absolutely loved all of the facts--which felt a little overwhelming to my history-free brain--that I learned in this book. I think my jaw was on the ground for 99.9% of it! I definitely don't remember learning even a fraction of these facts in any history class. I found myself diving into history in a way I have never done before. I just couldn't get enough! Google, highlighting, and note taking took up more time than I spent actually reading the book, but now I feel like I have *in my opinion* an accurate conclusion of the Civil War, or as I will now call it, The War of the Rebellion.
I thought that we (northerners) are all taught the same history. I had NO IDEA that the south would be taught anything different. The fact that the United Daughter's of the Confederacy controlled the education of children regarding the Civl War appalled and disgusted me. I did a lot of research into this group, and I'm left flabbergasted by that organization. I literally have no words regarding what I've learned about them, just shock and awe.
I was also appalled at the history regarding the naming of the U.S. Army bases, and how West Point eventually came to honor the Confederacy --- two more chapters where my jaw was on the ground.
After all that I've read in this book as well as seen throughout my own life, I fully agree with [the historian David Blight who wrote that the Civil War is like "the giant sleeping dragon of American history ever ready to rise up when we do not expect it and strike us with unbearable fire."] I have learned from this book that "history is dangerous. It forms our identity...and if someone challenges a sacred myth, the reaction can be ferocious." I saw that evidenced in this book, as well as the news as of late. My eyes are now fully open to the hateful, rhetoric dragon fire that the Lost Cause myth has been/is continuously spewing throughout the United States, and I cannot thank Ty Seidule enough for that.