Weirding the War

Frequently, books claim to challenge the master narrative of the Civil War in one way or another. Rarely do you find a book that challenges the very notion of a master narrative. Weirding the War, a collection of essays edited by Stephen Berry, claims to do just that. “Weirding” is, according to Berry, “the historians' equivalent of ‘freakonomics’ (the use of economic theory to investigate atypical subjects in the hope of yielding fresh insights into typical social dynamics)” (p. 5). In a historical sense, Berry explains it as “a way of alienating the past from its present purposes, releasing the past from its present work, and returning to the past a measure of its original ‘foreignness’” (ibid.). Berry and his contributors manage to accomplish their goal and weird the Civil War. As part of this effort, Berry plunders coroner reports for dead Southerners and Michael DeGruccio loots dead soldiers. Megan Kate Nelson describes how Northerners reveled in ruins, while Rodney J. Steward explains how Southerners did not destroy property; instead, officials confiscated it. Amy Murrell Taylor examines African Americans who froze to death after being turned out of Northern refugee camps. Andrew L. Slap chronicles the story of African Americans who turned themselves out of camp and deserted the Union army. While Diane Miller Sommerville discusses Confederate soldiers who lost their minds, Brian Craig Miller examines Southerners who lost their limbs. On a lighter note, both Anya Jabour and Steven E. Nash find that Southern girls just wanted to have fun—and boyfriends—during wartime. LeeAnn Whites examines women who were literally prostrate for their cause: prostitutes during Missouri's guerilla war. Some essays examine real soldiers: Peter S. Carmichael discusses how Civil War soldiers thought, Lesley J. Gordon assesses how some Connecticut soldiers remembered and forgot after the war, and Daniel E. Sutherland examines an imaginary soldier—reimagining the painter James Abbot Whistler as a Civil War general. Joan E. Cashin describes real hunger

Art · Literature · Miller · Narrative · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · History · Law

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