Wpl Life in Sth Dur Civil War

by James P. Reger

Book Overview

Describes the daily life, in the Confederacy, of ladies and gentlemen, slaves, middle class whites, and marginal characters. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560063335
• ISBN13: 9781560063339
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Lucent Books
• Length: 111 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.8" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 12 to 15 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 10

Customer Reviews

Brief yet comprehensive

I recently discovered Lucent's "The Way People Live" series through my public library, and I have to say I'm glad I did. This is the first volume I've actually read; if they're all as good, they should be found in every library, and on the bookshelves of every history-loving home, in the country. Despite his title, author Reger actually gives much of his attention to the way Southerners lived *before* the War. He covers every level of Southern society, from planters through the "yeoman farmer" on down to slaves and "po' white trash," and while he necessarily does so rather briefly, he manages to cover a lot of ground and even impart some information I had never seen before (which is always the biggest test of a nonfiction volume to anyone who has spent 40 years studying this very period and the eras immediately before and after!). One thing I especially like about his treatment is that he's not politically correct and has the good sense to report that slave-owning Southerners thoroughly understood how, according to one quote he offers, "A Negro's life is too valuable to be risked...Do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg." Many revisionist historians would have you believe that all Negroes were treated brutally in slavery days, but Reger states that "more than 70% of the [former slaves] interviewed [in the 1930's by the WPA] reported dominantly positive recollections of their time in captivity." The book treats its subject in a vivid and interesting way, admitting to the faults as well as the positive aspects of a vanished system and bolstering its assertions with many quotes from primary sources, as well as dozens of black-and-white illustrations, both photographic and otherwise. There is also a brief bibliography and a good index. Though seriously curious students will need to seek out more books to get a broader picture of the time and place, this is definitely a good one to start with, and should prove useful to adults too.

Good for any Age

Although a YA book, this is a perfect book for anyone wanting to know about daily life in the south during the Civil War. It is part of a series called The Way People Live, which focuses on "cultural pockets" which share the distinction of having "been viewed before but not completely understood". The author believes that removing stereotypes, both positive or negative, is the only way to really understand any culture. The emphasis in this Lucent series is on the personal aspects of life in the culture that is being examined and "seeing humans as victims, heroes, and onlookers". To do this, the book uses a large number and wide variety of primary quotations and illustrations.Everyday Southern life is examined in this book, along with the effects of the Civil War on daily life. Plantation life is described and the roles of the men, the women, and the slaves on them are explained.The author then brings his focus to the vast majority of those in the South during the Civil War -- the poor and the middle class. The men and boys of these classes comprised most of the Confederate Army, not the wealthy.A good resource for those wishing to delve into the culture of the Civil War South.