Provides a history of the music and lyrics of a dozen Civil War songs, describing the circumstances under which they were created and performed.

Here are the songs and stories that made history. Includes lyrics, music, song histories, trivia, humor plus 100 Civil War photographs and illustrations. All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight, Battle Cry of Freedom, Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Bonnie Blue Flag, Dixie's Land, The Faded Coat of Blue, Goober Peas, Hard Crackers Come Again No More, Home! Sweet Home!, Here's Your Mule, Just Before the Battle, Mother, Lorena, Maryland, My Maryland, Marching Through Georgia, O I'm a Good Old Rebel, Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!, The Vacant Chair, Weeping, Sad and Lonely, When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

Popular media can spark the national consciousness in a way that captures people’s attention, interests them in history, and inspires them to visit battlefields, museums, and historic sites. This lively collection of essays and feature stories celebrates the novels, popular histories, magazines, movies, television shows, photography, and songs that have enticed Americans to learn more about our most dramatic historical era. From Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, from Roots to Ken Burns’s The Civil War, from “Dixie” to “Ashokan Farewell,” and from Civil War photography to the Gettysburg Cyclorama, trendy and well-loved depictions of the Civil War are the subjects of twenty contributors who tell how they and the general public have been influenced by them. Sarah Kay Bierle examines the eternal appeal of Gone with the Wind and asks how it is that a protagonist who so opposed the war has become such a figurehead for it. H. R. Gordon talks with New York Times–bestselling novelist Jeff Shaara to discuss the power of storytelling. Paul Ashdown explores ColdMountain’s value as a portrait of the war as national upheaval, and Kevin Pawlak traces a shift in cinema’s depiction of slavery epitomized by 12 Years a Slave. Tony Horwitz revisits his iconic Confederates in the Attic twenty years later. The contributors’ fresh analysis articulates a shared passion for history’s representation in the popular media. The variety of voices and topics in this collection coalesces into a fascinating discussion of some of the most popular texts in the genres. In keeping with the innovative nature of this series, web-exclusive material extends the conversation beyond the book.

This book provides new information about Emily Dickinson as a writer and new ways of situating this poet in relation to nineteenth-century literary culture, examining how we read her poetry and how she was reading the poetry of her own day. Cristanne Miller argues both that Dickinson's poetry is formally far closer to the verse of her day than generally imagined and that Dickinson wrote, circulated, and retained poems differently before and after 1865. Many current conceptions of Dickinson are based on her late poetic practice. Such conceptions, Miller contends, are inaccurate for the time when she wrote the great majority of her poems. Before 1865, Dickinson at least ambivalently considered publication, circulated relatively few poems, and saved almost everything she wrote in organized booklets. After this date, she wrote far fewer poems, circulated many poems without retaining them, and took less interest in formally preserving her work. Yet, Miller argues, even when circulating relatively few poems, Dickinson was vitally engaged with the literary and political culture of her day and, in effect, wrote to her contemporaries. Unlike previous accounts placing Dickinson in her era, Reading in Time demonstrates the extent to which formal properties of her poems borrow from the short-lined verse she read in schoolbooks, periodicals, and single-authored volumes. Miller presents Dickinson's writing in relation to contemporary experiments with the lyric, the ballad, and free verse, explores her responses to American Orientalism, presents the dramatic lyric as one of her preferred modes for responding to the Civil War, and gives us new ways to understand the patterns of her composition and practice of poetry.

A Companion to the War Film contains 27 original essays that examine all aspects of the genre, from the traditional war film, to the new global nature of conflicts, and the diverse formats that war stories assume in today’s digital culture. Includes new works from experienced and emerging scholars that expand the scope of the genre by applying fresh theoretical approaches and archival resources to the study of the war film Moves beyond the limited confines of “the combat film” to cover home-front films, international and foreign language films, and a range of conflicts and time periods Addresses complex questions of gender, race, forced internment, international terrorism, and war protest in films such as Full Metal Jacket, Good Kill, Grace is Gone, Gran Torino, The Messenger, Snow Falling on Cedars, So Proudly We Hail, Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, Tender Comrade, and Zero Dark Thirty Provides a nuanced vision of war film that brings the genre firmly into the 21st Century and points the way for exciting future scholarship

The U.S. Civil War is not only the history of Americans killing Americans on the battlefields, but also a drama of cause and effect and how the conflict perpetually changed the lives of the people, communities, and a national conscience. But do people have the awareness and understanding of the overall nature and upshots of it? Aimed at providing readers with valuable information on the Civil War, the rise and spread of slavery, and other relevant issues, author Walter F. Urbanek presents his book entitled Conviction Against Convention. Quick-witted and neatly written, Conviction Against Convention is an educational tool that offers a plethora of information on the Civil War. Urbanek’s major goal is to provide the readers with a comprehensive description of the institution of slavery that led up to the war. He points out the mobilization for war, a soldier’s life in camp, their music, the naval warfare, the battles they fought, and their weapons. He also shares about the life of the prisoners of war and how they suffered from various inhumane conditions. In this book, Urbanek offers a vivid portrayal of how economics encouraged not only the use of slavery, but also provoked a certain belief related to racism and bigotry. Serving as a mirror into the past, this book is also designed for the veterans to be able to relate to the fears, sorrows, and joys of those who had stepped forward to accept the challenge. It provides a glimpse of the lives of the commanding generals responsible for organizing, equipping, training, planning, implementing and leading their command in war against the enemy. “It is my hope that when the reader completes the book, he or she will have a better understanding and appreciation for the soldiers who participated in America’s bloodiest and most costly war – a war fought not against nations, but rather pitting brother against brother and conviction against convention,” Urbanek stated adding to his hope that Conviction Against Convention will open the minds of the people to prevent the failures and sins of their ancestors from recurring.