Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War

by Gary W. Gallagher

Book Overview

More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war--why it was fought, what was won, what was lost--not from books but from movies,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807832065
• ISBN13: 9780807832066
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Causes Won, Lost and Forgotten

This is an excellent book. What Dr. Gallagher does is outline how works of art, fiction, movies and so on shape modern perspectives of Civil War events and personalities. His meticulous study is demonstrated page after page as he reviews countless works of modern art, movies and other images. He particularly emphasizes how Ken Burns' DVD series "The Civil War," Shaara's Trilogy and Turner Pictures "Gettysburg" and to a lesser extent "Gods & Generals" have shaped modern consciousness about events and characters of the CW era. And I was a victim. I have seen lots of movies, including those mentioned previously and read Shaara. What I think Gallagher does is to expertly remove some of the glitter and shine of these modern works and compare those images to what really occured. I found it an eye-opening book and one I'd recommend to others.

How We Remember

How we remember the past doesn't reflect on historical events as much as it reflects on the persons remembering them, individually as people, or collectively as a community or a nation. Studying how we choose interpret and remember the Civil War, and how our interpretations of it have changed over time, tells us where we've been, where we are now and how far we've come. Gary Gallagher, in his book, "Causes Won, Lost & Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War," has given us just such a study. Mr. Gallagher has chosen to focus his study to the last twenty-five years or so in films and the last forty years in popular art. Before he tells us where we are in our remembrances on the Civil War he tells us where we've been, and to do that he defines the four narrative traditions that emerged after the Civil War: 1.) "The Lost Cause," The Confederacy fighting against overwhelming odds 2.) The Union Cause, 3.) The Emancipation Cause and 4.) The Reconciliation Cause. Of the four narrative traditions The Union Cause, popular both during and immediately after the war has fallen by the wayside in modern times, in part because it is not so easily depicted. To be able to tell us where we are as a society in our remembrances of the Civil War, Mr. Gallagher first briefly tells us where we've been by taking a look at how motion pictures have portrayed the Civil War from the development of the medium until the mid 1960's. Though he briefly mentions many movies, two stand out far and above the others, "The Birth of a Nation" and "Gone with the Wind." Both films rely heavily on their "Lost Cause" foundations. Other films of the era focus to a greater or lesser degree on The Lost Cause and Reconciliation traditions. Films dealing with the Civil War practically vanished during the Vietnam era. But starting with the observances of the quasiquicentenial of the Civil War in the mid to late 1980s and Ken Burns' 1991 PBS documentary "The Civil War," the war itself has made a comeback in American memory. For his study, Mr. Gallagher looked at 14 films: Glory, Dances With Wolves, Gettysburg, Sommersby, Little Women, Pharaoh's Army, Andersonville, Ride with the Devil, Gangs of New York, Gods and Generals, Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, The Confederate States of America and Seraphim Falls. With the notable exception of Gods and Generals the Lost Cause tradition has fallen by the wayside in film to join its brother The Union Cause. And in its place the Emancipation and the Reconciliation causes have taken root and blossomed. In popular art however, Mr. Gallagher has observed just the opposite. Looking at advertisements for works of art in Civil War magazines over the last forty years, Mr. Gallagher has noted that pictures with a Lost Cause theme or featuring Confederate Army and its leaders by far and away out sell artworks featuring Union themes, the Federal Army or its leaders. So why would the Lost Cause be in decline

An Author With A Deliciously Dry Wit

This book is one of the most entertaining Civil War books I have ever read, and that includes the hilarious Confederates in the Attic. As a woman going into her last year before getting a BA in History and with plans to go for a graduate degree in the Civil War and American Studies, I am surprised at the dry-as-dust reviews this book has generated so far. All five reviewers pat themselves on the back for explaining the four main interpretations of the Civil War in the media, apparantly without realizing that this information is clearly spelled out in the Product Information section. I am hoping that a person who reads this review will see how much fun this book is. In once instance, the author describes the politically correct view of the Civil War (which he clearly does not agree with) in saying that a better name for The Last Samurai would be Dances With Wolves Goes To Japan. In describing the anti-war, feminist approach Cold Mountain takes, he wonders how such a Confederacy as portrayed in this movie could possibly LAST for four years. And in the begining of the book, in his description of the mini-series North and South, author Gallagher thinks the principle TV direction was probably "A little more over the top, if you please." Aside from witticisms such as these, Gallagher is a first rate scholar of the Civil War and probes deeply into what the movie going public thinks it knows about the Civil War. The part about Southern feelings about affirmative action and the increasing secularization of America fueling a Lost Cause dominated artwork was particularly rewarding. For a reader looking for either how popular culture affects what the majority of Americans think about the Civil War, or else just a highly entertaining and thoughtful study of the Civil War as reflected in film, this is a can't-put-it-down volume.

Filtering the past

Different periods and different constituencies "remember" the past to be what they need it to be, and collective memories especially try to infuse a meaning into past events that are traumatic. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are a number of ways in which the Civil War, surely our single greatest national trauma, has been "remembered" by succeeding generations. In Causes Won, Lost, & Forgotten, Civil War scholar Gary Gallagher focuses on four filters through which we've remembered the Civil War and examines how popular film and art have expressed those memories. Gallagher argues that the going four interpretive traditions when it comes to the Civil War are the Lost Cause (the Confederate army fought honorably against overwhelming odds), the Union Cause (the war was fought to preserve the American experiment in democracy), the Emancipation Cause (the war was fought to end the egregious injustice of slavery), and the Reconciliation Cause (the war, although tragic, brought together all Americans, northerners and southerners, each of whom had fought honorably). Three of these attempts to read meaning back into the Civil War--the Lost Cause, Union Cause, and Reconciliation--tend either to ignore or to trivialize African Americans. Gallagher traces the presence of these four interpretations in both film and artwork that have the Civil War as their theme. Early cinema focused almost entirely on the Lost Cause filter, but more recent films move toward Emancipation and Reconciliation. The Union Cause seems not to resonate deeply with viewing audiences, although it was the paramount motivation for northern enthusiasm for the war. Traces of the Union Cause can be found in cinema--Gallagher especially notes its presence in Ron Maxwell's films--but it's certainly not dominant. In fact, post-Vietnam Civil War films tend if anything to portray Federal soldiers and anything smacking of nationalism in a harsh way. Even as films have backed away from the Lost Cause romantization of the war, popular artwork--prints and statues--remains focused squarely on it. Confederate generals are the rage (with Lee head and shoulders above all others). An especially popular motif combines Christian and Confederate themes: Lee and Jackson praying with a couple of kids on either side of them, or Lee reading the Bible to a child. The Confederate battle flag is a favorite image in the prints, and Bedford Forrest is depicted more often than one would suspect (given his unsavory reputation). Hollywood may feel uncomfortable in touting the Lost Cause (although Maxwell's aesthetically abysmal "Gods and Generals" is an exception). But given the popularity of Lost Cause-themed artwork, it's a safe bet that this memory filter is alive and well. A fascinating discussion by one of the nation's most respected Civil War scholars. Readers interested in the Civil War in popular memory might also find David Sachsman's Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction

How we see the Civil War

The Civil War is one of the most important events in American history, generating tons of books, magazines, memorials, paintings and statuary. The day the war ended, participants seem to have started books on their experience. Publishing has not stopped and seems to be more active now than 100 years ago. Any large complex event is subject to interpretation. This interpretation creates opportunities for additional interpretations. In time, what happened is subject to various interpretations that are the history of the event. Starting in 1865, the American Civil War was interpreted to fit the needs of groups of people. This created what the author calls the four traditions of our understanding of the war. Lost Cause; created by Southerners to come to grips with the results of the war. Union; was what motivated Northerners to fight to maintain one nation. Emancipation; developed after the war and cast the war as the finial act in the great struggle to end slavery in America. Reconciliation; is the view that both sides were honorable and fought bravely for deeply held ideals emerging as a stronger united nation. This tradition grew after reconstruction ended and veterans started to establish the National Battle Parks. Working with these four traditions, the author shows how movies and art portrays them. This can be unsettling. All the more so, if you have seen the movie and viewed the art. The book is similar to looking into a mirror. The reader's tradition(s) can be unsettling as you see their reflection. The author makes few judgments, trying to be fair to all sides. He has strong feelings about some of the traditions. However, Gallagher refuses to condemn or applauded trends. What we get is an intelligent, very readable account of how we look at the American Civil War. I have given this book five stars. I am an avid reader of ACW histories and very interested in the traditions on how we view the war. For an avid ACW person less interested in these traditions, this might be a four star book. For those interested in the impact of movies and TV on history, this might be a three star book. This book is an excellent companion to "The Legacy of the Civil War" by Robert Penn Warren. Many of Warren's ideas are supported and expanded on by Gallagher.