CIVIL WARS: WOMEN AND THE CRISIS OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM (Women in American History)
In this study of Southern white women during the Civil War and after, Rable examines the until-now unexplored interior cultural conflict spawned by the war and tries to discover how it affected women's views of themselves, their social identity, and their world. The war momentarily jarred many women into questioning traditional domestic, sexual, and social roles. But in the end, the innate conservatism of Southern women, albeit "based more on habit and inertia than conviction," not only survived but flourished. Based upon massive research in primary sources, eminently readable, and ever skeptical of the facile generalizations of earlier historians, this provocative book is essential for specialists of the period and in women's history.- Thomas E. Schott, Engineering Installation Div., Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.