Shifting Grounds
Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7305952 |
|---|---|
| Authors | George C Rable (University of Alabama, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 556-557 |
| Publication date | 2012-08-20 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jas295 |
| OpenAlex | W2034941721 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Paul Quigley examines an old issue—the nature of southern nationalism—through a new and somewhat improved wide-angle lens. Shifting Grounds not only shifts (along with the people whose voices are heard in the text) from broad to narrow views of its subject but also ranges widely, connecting topics such as moral criticism of dancing to the character of the Confederate experiment. Quigley anchors the study in the various currents of nineteenth-century nationalism. As in David M. Potter's classic essay on the subject (“The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa, American Historical Review, July 1962, pp. 924–50), Quigley argues that Americans' national loyalties were far from simple. Allegiance was almost always plural rather than singular. In probing the foundations of nationalism in the antebellum South, Quigley cites the usual suspects—southern intellectuals (especially South Carolinians)—who wrestled with questions of both national and southern identity. After all, white southerners were also American nationalists who celebrated the Fourth of July and watched with great interest the emergence of nationalist movements and revolutions in Europe. Although nationalism was often associated with ideas about democracy and progress, ethnic and less inclusive forms of nationalism proved equally important. History and constitutionalism likewise came into play because despite memories of the American Revolution that tended to cement national identity, federalism reinforced state claims to loyalty and at times weakened sectional ones. Quigley acknowledges racial and gender issues at play but generally avoids a presentist critique of nineteenth-century Americans. Shifting Grounds strikingly recaptures the emotional and visceral side of topics that have too often been treated in a highly abstract fashion
Aesthetics · Allegiance · Democracy · Identity (music · Immigration · National identity · Nationalism · Nationality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Subject (documents · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · Gender Studies · History · Law · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2021 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |