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Archaeologies of Slavery and Freedom in the Caribbean: Exploring the Spaces in Between: edited by Lynsey A. Bates, John M. Chenoweth, and James A. Delle, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 2016. ix, 358 pp., ill., maps. The volume concludes with remarks by Laurie Wilkie (Chapter 14) who draws on her own deep experience with plantation archaeology in both the Bahamas and the southeastern United States, to synthesize the preceding chapters and reflect on which "spaces in between" remain understudied. Seiter points out how on many small islands, sugar monoculture was slow to develop as the climate, challenging topography, and political instability were impediments to sugar cultivation and plantation slavery. [Extracted from the article]

We study European demand for American state bonds after the state debt crisis of the 1840s to establish this finding. Peter Nencka and Enrico Berkes, I The Ohio State University i SESSION 12: BANKING SERVICES FOR UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES Generating African-American Wealth through Banking Compiling a new dataset of banks owned and managed by African Americans from 1907 to 1930, I provide the first analysis of the contribution of African-American banks to the increase in economic welfare of African-American communities. Following a national bank holiday in 1933, New York state bank regulators suspended the publication of balance sheets of state-charter banks for two years, whereas national-charter bank regulators did not. We find that state-charter banks experienced less deposit outflows than national-charter banks in 1933. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the ongoing conflicts in various countries, including Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. It emphasizes the importance of studying the archaeology and history of conflict to understand the reality of mass violence and its impact on communities. The article also highlights the need for diverse perspectives and the inclusion of indigenous voices in conflict archaeology research. Additionally, it presents summaries of three papers published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology, focusing on topics such as the preservation of a Civil War battlefield, glass artifacts from World War I, and the military archaeology of the Italian occupation of Croatia during World War II. [Extracted from the article]

Funded by an American Battlefield Protection Program grant, LiDAR and KOCOA, guided a systematic metal detector survey to identify, and evaluate levels of preservation and battle pattern signatures from the Battle of Buckhead Creek, the largest American Civil War battle site in Southeast Georgia untouched by development. In November 1864, during Sherman's March to the Sea, Confederate and Union cavalry forces waged a running battle across Jenkins and Burke County, Georgia. These actions were ephemeral events in an archaeological sense, in time-depth and their impact on the archaeological record. However, this paper demonstrates that the application of conflict archaeology methodologies can identify and evaluate these sites, despite their wide-ranging geographical context, short-time spans, and the impacts of illicit metal detecting on the battle site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary social networks may have long-term impacts on economic outcomes. This paper focuses on social networks formed during the American Civil War (1861–1865) among African American veterans. I find that wartime social networks (veterans from the same company) persistently affected veterans' location choices in the post-Civil War period. By estimating discrete choice migration models, I show that veterans were more likely to move to a county where men from their military war company lived. By focusing on heterogeneous military companies and using the instrument of "weak" social networks, I rule out the competing explanation that the effect is driven by veterans having similar location preferences. The paper finds long-term benefits of living together as well. Veterans earned higher incomes after the war if they ended up living in the same county with wartime friends who had higher incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the factors behind the failure of British efforts to cultivate significant amounts of American cotton in the Ottoman Empire to compensate for the supplies cut due to the American Civil War. The reports by British consuls on the subject sheds light on Ottoman labor markets, financial strains on Ottoman agricultural workers and land owners, difficulties posed by natural and climatic conditions, the challenges faced in the difficult Anglo-Ottoman partnership, and the extent of central Ottoman authority (especially in terms of the ability of imperial bureaucracy to co-opt or coerce regional elites) in the third decade of the Tanzimat Reforms. British communications also display the varying opinions among British officials of the Ottoman government, officials, population, and the status of the Tanzimat Reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1862 and 1878, the view of the United States government towards the nation's money was transformed. Early in the Civil War, the government got into the bank note printing business out of necessity, printing and issuing the first-ever federal currency. Over the following years, debates raged whether the national currency should be printed privately or by the government's bank note printer, the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). Matters came to a head in 1878 when Congress debated the future of the BEP. That year, in a radical departure from the past, Congress gave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing a monopoly on the production of currency, forever changing the role of the government in the nation's economy. Money, be it in the form of coin or currency, was now the exclusive province of the government – not private banks or bank note companies. This change was the result of a rare consensus between Democrats and Republicans and between the forces of the antimonopoly tradition, Greenbackism, and hard money. For various reasons, they were unanimous in believing that the government, especially Congress, should be in control of those matters affecting the monetary affairs of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One puzzling omission was Milteer not mentioning Solomon Northrup in his discussion of free people of color being kidnapped and enslaved, even though Northrup is the I poster child i for being kidnapped and enslaved for twelve years on a Louisiana plantation. Milteer describes the ongoing correlation between passing new laws aligned with the population growth of free people of color. Milteer demonstrates a superior use of untapped primary sources of government papers, legislative records, old newspapers, and archival unpublished manuscripts and papers. [Extracted from the article]

The article reports on the availability of various collections for research at the Georgia Historical Society including Mariana Johnson Papers, Lieutenant General Donald E. "Rosie" Rosenblum Papers, and Georgia Historical Society Collection of American Civil War Confederate Medical Records.

This paper provides a new approach to studying the behavior of groups engaged in civil war termination bargaining by focusing on the commitment problem. Extending the basic Rubinstein bargaining model, the model presented here has the added feature of a reneging option for the stronger group after an agreement is reached. This leads to the prediction that when groups expect the absence of an enforcement mechanism, the stronger group makes a larger concession, while the weaker group makes a more demanding offer, than would be expected according to the relative power dynamic between groups. On the other hand, when groups expect that a third-party peace operator will enforce an agreement, groups' offers more closely reflect their relative power situation. To illustrate the causal process of groups' bargaining behavior, five bargaining attempts during Sierra Leone's civil wars from 1991 to 2002 are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many British travelers who visited America in the first half of the nineteenth century did so in order to see first-hand the democratic system and, depending on their own political views, warn their British readers against its dangers or present the U.S. as a model to imitate. My paper focuses on British travelogues written between the end of the Napoleonic wars (1815) and the American Civil War (1861), exploring how their authors conceived the American system and how they wanted to portray it to their compatriots. While progressive writers such as Harriet Martineau and Frances Wright believed that the young republic could, at most, be faulted on not being democratic and egalitarian enough, Tories such as Frances Trollope, Basil Hall and Charles Augustus Murray believed that the American model was harmful. The word "citizens" was used by them as a term of abuse, to signify people characterized by materialism and bad manners. They warned against equality, which they thought would result in leveling down, the tyranny of the majority and universal suffrage. The American model of citizenship seemed menacing especially in the 1830s and 1840s, when British Conservatives felt that the order of the Empire was threatened by the Radicals and the Chartist movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 1861, the United States embarked on its first widespread use of paper money: the Demand Notes of 1861. Although their convertibility into gold ended at the end of that year, they remained acceptable for tariff payment at a par with gold coin while they were gradually replaced with paper money that did not share this provision, the Greenbacks. We present daily observations of exchange rates between the Notes, Greenbacks, and gold for the extended period during which they simultaneously circulated. These exchange rates substantiate our revisionist notion that the Notes were replaced because the tariff provision prevented them from generating sufficient seigniorage for wartime needs. ( JEL E42, N12, N22) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the work of Deleuze and Guattari, the diagram is a concept that maps the power relations inscribed within the regulatory apparatuses of everyday life, such as schools, social norms, the law, etc. The diagram is the map of forces that make these apparatuses run, and cause them to tend to produce certain outcomes, to the exclusion of others. This paper explores performance as a diagrammatic medium, in that performance schematizes and models the world and the forces of power that make it. Building on Rebecca Schneider's work, the example of American Civil War re-enactment is used to think about the slippage between repetition and difference in the acting-out of quintessentially American themes, both in performance, and in contemporary politics. Can historical re-enactment be a form of psychodrama or political education? Or are Civil War re-enactments echoes of a quintessential, enduring American wish for 'redemptive violence, for domination and a return to a mythic past' (Robcis 2021: 146) that also resonates, for instance, in the 6 January Capitol attack? If the nation tends toward a (compulsive?) repetition of relations of enslavement, domination and violence (while fixating on rhetoric of freedom, liberty and justice) then it is important to ask how, and if, this diagram might be repeated differently within a performative space of play and fantasy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades after the Nigerian Civil War, the cohesion of the Nigerian nation-state is still challenged and contested in a manner that has kept the echoes of the war loud. There has been a lot of discourse and writing on the subject, but the issues are never exhausted. For example, Elechi Amadi has written a memoir (Sunset in Biafra), a novel (Estrangement), and a play (The Road to Ibadan) on the war. Amadi's play has not received as much critical attention as his prose. It seems as if the significance of Amadi's play has been lost on the scholars of African Literature. This paper, therefore, examines the depiction of the Nigerian Civil War in one of Amadi's five plays, entitled The Road to Ibadan. Given that critics of this play (such as S. Iniobong Udoidem, Matthew Umukoro, Seiyifa Koroye, and Ebele Eko) have skimmed over the actual tenor of the play, this paper situates the play and its dramatis personae in the context of warfare to reveal how the playwright depicts war, anarchy, displacement, and disruption. It also observes that the play is, arguably, set in a minority territory that is often neglected in the general war/postwar discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the current state of knowledge of American naval boarding axes from the colonial period to the Civil War. It spans the time when most naval axes were either manufactured in Britain or were locally made copies, through the brief life of the Continental Navy and to the formation of the United States Navy which issued the first government pattern axes. It examines the three types of 'toothed' boarding axe which are uniquely identifiable as American by the inclusion of a serration on the rear side of the blade. It ends with the Civil War and the evolution of the boarding axe to a tool more in keeping with the transition from sail to steam and the introduction of more powerful naval artillery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a specific form of group loss and unconscious responses to it. Defeat in war and the absence of formal and unconditional surrender can lead to profound dysfunction psychosocial outcomes. Our “case example” is the ambiguous conclusion to the Civil War in the U.S. (1865), in which surrender by Confederate generals was a serial process lacking a formal conclusion to hostilities. We explore how this sense of incompleteness left sufficient mental space for Southern whites to think and believe that their defeat did not constitute surrender and that the (white) South could therefore “rise again,” restoring its former glory. Vamik Volkan’s framework of “chosen traumas” provides for retroactively reversing historical events to restore a defeated group’s “chosen glory.” The historical and psychopolitical legacy of this wished-for rewriting of history is explored through to the present and the Age of Trump. The recent emergence of white supremacy and grievance and the rise of overt and violent racism against blacks including renewed restrictions on voting rights is such an example where there is a reversing of history to restore the former glory of the South that was defeated but did not surrender. The article concludes by situating the case study in widespread, if not universal, culture and history, as an expression of unconscious psychosocial dynamics in response to traumatic loss when defeat on the battlefield is not accompanied by formal and unconditional surrender creating a clear time boundary—before and after. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the persistence of Southern slave owners in political power after the American Civil War. Using data from Texas, we show that former slave owners made up more than half of all state legislators until the late 1890s. Legislators with slave-owning backgrounds were more likely to be Democrats and voted more conservatively even conditional on party membership. A county's propensity to elect former slave owners was positively correlated with cotton production, but negatively with Reconstruction-era progress of blacks. Counties that elected more slave owners also displayed worse educational outcomes for blacks in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German immigrants who came to the American North prior to 1861 volunteered en masse once the Civil War began, and they became the largest group of foreign fighters in the Union Army during the war. The initial motivations of German immigrant soldiers in the Union Army have been misunderstood by many historians who look at Germans as Hessian mercenaries in the Union ranks – who fought purely for money –and historians who focus too heavily on the failed 1848 German Revolution as the basis of German immigrant involvement in the war. Both answers are correct to some degree, but neither fully explains the initial motivations of 190,000 German immigrants and 56,000 German Americans who volunteered to fight for the Union. This paper asks the question: what were the initial motivations of German immigrants who fought for the Union? The answer is much more complex than any one historian has presented prior, and only by exploring the full range of their initial motivations can we understand their sustained motivations for remaining in the Union Army. To demonstrate its argument, the paper utilizes sources ranging from English- and translated German to English-language newspapers, personal letters, soldiers' memoir s and manuscripts in American archives. The paper traces German soldiers in the army from 1861 through the entirety of the war, and it explores the significance of their reenlistment in 1864. It concludes that German immigrant soldiers' commitment to the Union was rooted in numerous intertwined situations that existed in the years prior to and during the American Civil War, especially their desire for liberty and a new home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on Biafra's calculus of war to shed new light on the rebel-side debate, this article revisits the Civil War of Nigeria (1967–1970) to extract campaign lessons for the Nigerian Army (NA) in its fight against Boko Haram (BH). The paper uses Nassim Taleb's 'antifragility' theory to explain why Biafra rebels crumbled under traditional military campaign stressors imposed on them. By contrast, Boko Haram's 'antifragile' threat has grown, even as campaign stressors imposed by the NA increased. Embracing the differences in operational environment within both conflicts, this article reflects on the implications of BH's antifragility for the NA's counter-insurgency (COIN). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The next paper is a very useful artefact paper by Julian Bennett looking at the saw-backed bayonet, a weapon that was the basis of a lot of anti-German propaganda. Arnshav talks about the way that a weapon even affected the physical deportment of refugees; there is much food for thought in this for the conflict archaeologist of whatever period. The first of the group is Emily Boak's paper on the archaeology of conflict in the war zone of Afghanistan, looking at both the archaeology and the archaeological methodologies. [Extracted from the article]

"A CIVIL WAR IS A BATTLE BETWEEN THE SAME CITIZENS IN A COUNTRY. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR WAS FOUGHT FROM 1861 TO 1865 TO DETERMINE THE INDEPENDENCE FOR THE CONFEDERACY OR THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNION. BY THE TIME ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT IN 1861, IN THE MIST OF 34 STATES, THE CONSTANT DISAGREEMENT CAUSED SEVEN SOUTHERN SLAVE STATES TO THEIR INDEPENDENCE FROM THE UNITED STATES AND FORMED THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. THE CONFEDERACY, GENERALLY KNOWN AS THE SOUTH, GREW TO INCLUDE ELEVEN STATES. THE STATES THAT REMAINED DEVOTED TO THE US WERE KNOWN AS THE UNION OR THE NORTH. THE NUMBER ONE QUESTION THAT IS NEVER COMPLETELY UNDERSTOOD ABOUT THE CIVIL WAR IS WHAT CAUSED THE WAR. THERE WERE MULTIPLE EVENTS THAT LED TO THE GROUNDBREAKING, BLOODY, AND POLITICAL WAR. IN THE 19TH CENTURY THERE WAS A POPULAR DOCTRINE OR BELIEF THAT THE WESTWARD EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES NOT ONLY COULD HAPPEN, BUT THAT IT WAS DESTINED TO STRETCH FROM COAST TO COAST."[1] THIS PAPER IS DEVIDED INTO TWO MAJOR PARTS CLOSELY CONNECTED. THE FIRST PART PRESENTS THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND INTENDS TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: 1. WHAT WERE THE REASONS BEHIND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR? 2. WHICH WERE THE MAIN FIGURES, AND BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR? 3. WHICH WERE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR? THE SECOND PART OF THE PAPER PRESENTS AN EMBLEMATIC FIGURE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY: THE PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN. HERE ARE PRESENTED HIS LIFE, POLITICAL ACTIVITY, ASSASINATION AND HIS ROLE IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. THE CONCLUSIONS ROUND THIS PRESENTATION. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The military terrain analysis system KOCOA (Key Terrain, Observation, Cover/concealment, Obstacles, and Avenues of approach; also OAKOC or OCOKA) was developed as part of the burgeoning discipline of military science around the start of the American Civil War. It is now part of the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program's survey methodology, was introduced to conflict archaeology by Scott and McFeaters and Scott and Bleed and has been used as a tool for predicting battlefield locations. However, it has potential applications beyond battlefields. This paper explores how applying KOCOA elucidates conflict landscapes of power, dominance, and control. An analysis of the internment landscape of Camp Lawton, an 1864 Confederate POW camp, with KOCOA, will highlight how principles of dominance were applied, and how concealment and obstacles actively disrupted the 'unequal gaze' of Foucault. But also how KOCOA functions in determining the grammar of space for elements of the constructed environment of a military complex; with aspects like defence and observation of equal weight with domination and control. KOCOA delivers the visualization of these abstracts within a GIS environment, and thus guides excavation and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• $45.00 Decisions at Antietam: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle • Michael S. Lang • Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2021 • xx, 306 pp. • $45.00 cloth; $29.50 paper Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War • Lorien Foote • Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021 • xvi, 296 pp. • $29.95 A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era • Andrew F. Lang • Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021 • 558 pp. [Extracted from the article]

This paper exploits the history of Reconstruction after the American Civil War to estimate the effect of politician race on public finance. While the effect of black politicians is positive and significant, black officials may be endogenous to electoral preferences for redistribution. I therefore use the number of free blacks in the antebellum era (1860) as an instrument for black political leaders during Reconstruction. Instrumental variables (IV) estimates show that an additional black official increased per capita county tax revenue by $0.20, more than an hour's wage at the time. The effect was not persistent, however, disappearing entirely once black politicians were removed from office at Reconstruction's end. Consistent with the stated policy objectives of black officials, I find positive effects of black politicians on land tenancy and black literacy. These results suggest that black political leaders had large effects on public finance and individual outcomes over and above electoral preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work deals with a set of internecine wars that took place in Spain during the nineteenth century. Generally known as the Carlist Wars, they represent a conflict that has barely been covered by archaeology. The aim of this paper is to briefly introduce these wars, analyse their material effects and reflect on their further consequences. In material terms, we take into consideration the influence of a growing globalization that can be clearly made out between the First and Third Carlist wars, both mediated by gradual industrialization and the American Civil War. In social and mnemonic terms, we examine the construction of a social memory that took place around this conflict and its effects to the present. In short, we provide a case of local internecine conflict that was at the same time inserted in worldwide social, economic and ideological processes underway during the nineteenth century and whose influence is still perceptible today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologies of internment present unique challenges and benefits. Myriad aspects of human behaviour that stretch over temporal scales of generations and centuries at other archaeological sites are visible in ephemeral traces of short-term occupation at sites of internment such as prisoner of war (POW)camps; resistance, domination, the structure and scaffolds of authority, agency and identity are created, cast, and discarded into the soil. The paper examines some of these stories from the earth through military prisons of the American Civil War, and the ephemeral archaeology of selected case studies: Camp Lawton, Andersonville, and Johnson's Island. Themes explored are globalization and the intersection of the global at the local in prison camps, resistance, its forms, and function within POW camps; and how resistance intersecting with systems of structural violence within internment camps spurred the development of a masculinity in the 19th century during, and after the American Civil War, different from societal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, the Union greatly outpaced the Confederacy in industrial manufacturing capabilities. The Confederacy's economy prior to the conflict was largely based on agriculture, and the Southern states lacked the facilities and skilled labourers to produce iron on the scale necessary to compete with the Union. The possibility of importing products was greatly diminished when President Lincoln instituted a naval blockade around major Southern ports, limiting the amount of cargo that could be imported from Europe. Consequently, the Confederacy was forced to adapt ironworks to wartime purposes. Despite these adaptations, the Confederacy suffered from iron shortages throughout the war. This paper uses the iron ballast found on the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley as a case study for the manufacturing processes, labour relationships and social significance of iron production and usage in the Confederacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that current academic definitions of civil war are largely inadequate for international relations practitioners. While these casualty-based standards have the methodological consistency needed for quantitative research, they do not capture the dynamics most important to policymakers, including the degree of threat to national interests, the level of disruption to the international system, and the political implications of labelling a conflict a civil war. This paper explains how academics and practitioners use civil war definitions in different ways, creating the need for an additional but non-exclusive practitioner-centric definition of civil war. Its purpose is not to replace the existing academic standard, but rather to provide an additional tool for policymakers tailored to their specific needs – identifying when a civil war has emerged in order to implement a policy response. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Chester Alan Arthur was the twentieth-first president of the United States. His presidency, from 1881-1885, was unplanned and monumental, yet he is an often overlooked figure of history. When he is remembered, it is for domestic reform. Here his part on the international stage, through the events of the International Prime Meridian Conference in 1884 in Washington DC, an early success for international relations, and his part in the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884-1885, through recognizing the Congo flag, are explored. How his character influenced his role, how it contrasted with Belgian King Leopold II, and Arthur's place in civil rights history is also examined, as well as the developing imperialism and Anglo-American order of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church in the United States remained politically neutral about slavery and abolition in the decades before the Civil War, partly because of the influence of John England, bishop of the diocese of Charleston. In a much publicized defense of slavery, England argued that slavery was a political issue, not a moral one. Clergy and laity, however, wrote repeatedly to Rome and criticized their leaders for neglecting to promote a ministry to free and enslaved African Americans. Roman authorities, particularly those of Propaganda Fide, were reluctant to take a stand on this important issue until near the end of the Civil War. This paper explains why John England defended slavery and why Propaganda did not issue guidance on one of the greatest moral dilemmas in American history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the U.S. Civil War, the Confederate Congress adopted three currency reforms that were intended to reduce the quantity of Treasury notes in circulation by inducing the money-holding public to exchange their notes for long-term bonds. In this paper, we examine the political factors that influenced the adoption of the reforms and their effect on the flow of seigniorage - revenue that the government derived by using the newly-printed Treasury notes to purchase the goods and services it required. We argue that the bifurcation of the Confederate Congress into two groups – those legislators that represented the Confederacy's interior and those from areas no longer under Confederate control – contributed to the adoption of the reforms. Our findings indicate that representing an area outside of the rebel government's control increased the likelihood that a legislator would support efforts to reform the currency by over 90 percent. In addition, our results indicate that the rate of monetary expansion in the South was below that which would have maximized the revenue from seigniorage. We find that the reforms reduced the flow of seigniorage by approximately 57 percent, depriving the Confederate government of much-needed revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of African American music in E. L. Doctorow's historical novel The March (2005), with a focus on selected scenes in which this type of music occurs. It examines the emotions elicited in the protagonists as well as the atmosphere created or underlined by this music. Furthermore, it takes into account which musical instruments are employed and considers their significance in the book with regard to their symbolic meaning. It also investigates the extent to which African American music contributes to the development of the story. The name of the book refers to Sherman's March to the Sea, which took place towards the end of the American Civil War and when numerous former slaves were freed by Sherman's troops. The fate of the freed slaves, however, was rather complex, which is reflected in the characteristics of the music that they perform in certain scenes. The relevance of African American Music to Doctorow's work is highlighted by the fact that the author himself became world-famous chiefly for his novel Ragtime (1975), whose main protagonist Coalhouse Walker is a pianist of African American origin. The character's fictional father Coalhouse Walker senior appears as an African American banjo player in The March. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Civil War destroyed a substantial fraction of southern wealth and emancipation transferred human capital to the formerly enslaved. The prevailing view of most economic historians is that the southern planter elite was able to retain its relative status despite these shocks. Previous studies have been hampered, however, by limits on the ability to link individuals between census years, and scholars have been forced to focus on persistence within one or a few counties. Recent advances in electronic access to the Federal Census manuscripts now make it possible to link individuals without these constraints. In this paper, we exploit the ability to search the full manuscript census to construct a sample that links top wealth holders in 1870 to their 1860 census records. Although there was an entrenched southern planter elite that retained their economic status, we find evidence that the turmoil of the 1860s opened greater opportunities for mobility in the South than was the case in the North, resulting in much greater turnover among wealthy southerners than among comparably wealthy northerners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on his career and his work in the field of American Jewish history. Topics covered include his publication of the paper "Antisemitism in the United States, 1778-1945" which introduced him to the literature of American Jewish history, his opportunity to work at the American Jewish Historical Society and the difficulty encountered in training in the field.

This article addresses authenticity and how it is selectively used by Civil War reenactors to create credible reenactments. The Civil War provides a structured set of scenarios for reenactors to use as a backdrop for their participation. Some use this backdrop to bring objects to the forefront and others use this setting as a way to interact with an audience person to person. This research indicates that authenticity may come through on different levels for individuals participating in the same activity. An authentic experience or object is authentic because it has an important immediate meaning. The objects and narratives displayed by reenactors may be set in specific history but this does not mean that these same objects and narratives are part of that history. This paper contributes to the study of authenticity by examining groups of Civil War reenactors and where their focus of authenticity lies whether it is on authentic objects or interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the aesthetics of presenting various historical artefacts, cultural documents, and ideological narratives at three museums in the United States of America: one tied to the African-American experience, one to the Confederate States of America, and the last one to the Old West, namely the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio; the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia; and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. All three sites are clearly representative repositories and exhibits of 'a nation's memories'. The paper asks how these fascinating exhibits activate, echo, or fabricate the myths that cast the Civil War and its aftermath during the Reconstruction as a 'second founding' of the USA in an ongoing nationalistic 'singing of the nation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the medical histories of a sample of 25,000 Union Army soldiers and veterans to study the determinants of diagnosis, discharge, and mortality from tuberculosis. We find that water and airborne diseases during the war contributed significantly to the presence of tuberculosis. Height and a higher body mass index (BMI) are also associated with protection against TB but these effects are not always robust. As an upper bound, we estimate that the contribution of modern gains in height and in BMI to the mortality decline of tuberculosis ranges from one-fourth to one-half with the rest explained by the decline in the prevalence of water and airborne diseases, especially diarrhea, dysentery, and typhoid played. The paper finds weaker support for alternative hypotheses that rely on occupational influences and exogenous changes in the virulence of tuberculosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I assess how the outcomes of presidential elections are affected by the presence (or lack) of partisan bias in the Electoral College. There have been three instances (1876, 1888 and 2000) since the end of the Civil War where the party that lost the popular vote won the Electoral College. These instances raise the question of whether partisan bias consistently influences presidential election outcomes? I answer this question by first measuring partisan bias and then using these estimates to assess how partisan bias affects a party's odds of winning a presidential election. I find that the presence of partisan bias provides a sizable, but not insurmountable, obstacle for the disadvantaged party. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the significance of racism in fueling the recent rise of the Tea Party and related Right-Wing political groups and activity. It briefly explores some of the history of racism in this country that has been directed toward African Americans and how it has influenced political developments from Colonial times to the present. It suggests that this racist resurgence can be seen, in part, as a re-enactment of the trauma of the Civil War by the descendants, and those who identify with them, who were on the losing side of that conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the persistence of the shock caused by the American Civil War on the relative city size distribution of the USA. Two features make the study of this conflict interesting. First, it took place at an earlier stage of the industrialisation and urbanisation processes than those previously analysed in the related literature. Second, the battles were fought in the open field, not in urban areas. In line with previous results for the Second World War in Japanese and German cities, our findings suggest that the effects of the shock were transitory. Furthermore, some evidence regarding the possible presence of a ‘safe harbour effect’ is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the legacy of the U.S. Civil War from the point of view of the former Confederates and the way they presented it in the pages of the magazine "Confederate Veteran" from 1893 to 1932. Topics include the term "Lost Cause," the magazine's vision of the truth, and its interpretations in textbooks aiming to protect the upper class of the South. The Southern Historical Society Papers that documented veterans' and eyewitnesses' memories are discussed.

The article announces that the Navarro College Archives has acquired the collections "Hayden Family Papers, 1864-1866" and "The Martin Family Papers, 1861-1866," with abstracts available at http://www.nav.cctx.us/Irc/Archives/SpecialCollections/CivilWar/hdescriptions.htm and at http://www.nav.cctx.us/Irc/Archives/SpecialCollections/CivilWar/mdescriptions.htm.

Background The principles guiding reconstruction of the lower limb after trauma have become established over 300 years through advances in technology and studies of epidemiology. This paper reviews how these principles came about and why they are important. Methods This is a structured review of historical and recent literature pertinent to lower limb reconstruction. The outcomes assessed in the pre-modern era were wound mortality, amputation mortality and amputation rate. In the modern era, infection and non-union emerged as measures of outcome, which are morbidity- rather than mortality-based. Indications for amputation published during the eras are taken to reflect the reconstructive practices of the time. Results Amputation and wound mortality fell throughout the pre-modern era, from 70% and 20% to 1.8% and 1.8%, respectively. Amputation rates peaked in the American Civil War (53%) but have remained less than 20% since then. Infection and non-union rates in the modern era have fluctuated between 5% and 45%. Conclusions Priority areas for research include refinement of soft tissue reconstruction, injury classification, standardization of outcome measures and primary prevention. The impact of débridement and antisepsis on outcomes should not be forgotten as progress is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the conference "The Transnational Significance of the American Civil War: A Global History," that was held from 9/15/2011 to 9/18/2011. Papers were presented on topics including U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's approach to advocating nationalism, the 1863 founding of the National Academy of Sciences and the total war elements of the American Civil War.

Information about several papers discussed at the conference "The Transnational Significance of the American Civil War: A Global History," held at Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany from September 15 to September 18, 2011, is presented. Topics include the founding of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, U.S. cotton in the global economy, and the impact of the U.S. Civil War on Latin America. Speakers included scholars Nicola Miller, Brian Schoen, and Axel Jansen.

This paper introduces arguments from Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic¹ to suggest that the Civil War arose ultimately because of class-conflict between on the one hand, Southern slaves and their masters and, on the other, Northern workers and their employers. It does not, however, suggest that either in the North or the South these conflicts were on the point of erupting into revolution. On the contrary, they were relatively easily containable. However, harmony within each section (North and South) could be secured only at the cost of intersectional conflict, conflict which would finally erupt into civil war. The Civil War was a 'bourgeois revolution' not only because it destroyed slavery, an essentially precapitalist system of production, in the United States but also because it resulted in the enthronement of Northern values, with the normalisation of wage-labour at their core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the ways in which contemporary social and political events shaped the commemoration of the Civil War Centennial in 1960s South Carolina. The Centennial dramatically revealed that the issues that had divided the nation in the nineteenth century remained unresolved in the twentieth. The attempt to create a comprehensive and unifying celebration by avoiding slavery as a major topic was simply not possible amidst the national conflict over segregation. The commemoration ironically came to an explosive head in Charleston a hundred years after the first shots at Fort Sumter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper answers the following question. If returns from smuggling cotton and contraband through the blockade of Confederate ports during the American Civil War were significantly lower than earnings from alternative investments, why did private firms so quickly adopt costly purpose-built steam ships in the face of the strengthening Northern blockade? First, we note that the rate of diffusion of steam ships, specially designed to run the blockade significantly exceeded any reported for innovations from the late 19th or early 20th century. Second, we correct an error in Stanley Lebergott's (1981) seminal work and conclude that that returns to infamous steamer, the Banshee (I) of 700% to be quite plausible. This finding of high returns is confirmed by two other historical sources, which have not been previously used. Additionally, we calculate that investors in the one of the leading blockade running firms, known as the Bee Company, earned in excess of 86% return on their investment, over double the profits previously reported. Finally, we demonstrate that adoption of purpose-built ships, significantly decreased the arrival rate of capture, thus increasing expected profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of the paper demonstrates the connection between the abolition of slavery and the Industrial Revolution: steam power changed the perception of labour; new techniques facilitated diffusion of pro-abolition pamphlets; fewer threats to basic existence resulting from industrial advances fostered sensibilities and moral standards toward abolitionism; and, through industrial development, the North grasped victory in the American Civil War. The second part presents similarities between societies in the past that have used slave labour and those in the present that use fossil fuels. It argues that slaves and fossil-fuelled machines play(ed) similar economic and social roles: both slave societies and developed countries externalise(d) labour and both slaves and modern machines free(d) their owners from daily chores. Consequently, we are as dependent on fossil fuels as slave societies were dependent on bonded labour. It also suggests that, in differing ways, suffering resulting (directly) from slavery and (indirectly) from the excessive burning of fossil fuels are now morally comparable. When we emit carbon dioxide at a rate that exceeds what the ecosystem can absorb, when we deplete non-renewable resources, we indirectly cause suffering to other human beings. Similarly, cheap oil facilitates imports of goods from countries with little social protection and hence help externalise oppression. The conclusion draws on the lessons which may be learned by Climate Change campaigners from the campaigns to abolish slavery: environmental apathy can be opposed effectively if we learn from what worked in the fight against this inhuman institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]