Books like From rebellion to revolution by Eugene D. Genovese

David Robertson’s biography of Denmark Vesey, a freed black leader who planned the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history, explores the revolt’s planning, execution, and lasting impact on African American political life.

Daniel Rasmussen wrote this material as part of a senior project at Harvard where he discovered written accounts of the violent uprising of five-hundred slaves near New Orleans in 1811. The result is unbalanced. By compiling written contemporary reports and oral traditions, he compiled a narrative of the events that, not surprisingly, starts with the assumption that all Louisiana whites were and continue to be wicked and all United States government actions prior to 1865 were imperialistic and illegal. Slavery, of course, was wrong and needed correction. But Rasmussen's coverage of the events promised in the book title comprise only a relatively small portion of the work. The rest, especially the conclusion, is a standard litany of socialistic themes and rationalizations. Interestingly, he claims in his acknowledgements that a friend helped him 'tone down my polemical tendencies.' Needed more toning down. Reviewed by J.David Knepper

If one is to believe contemporary historians, the South never had a chance. Many allege that the Confederacy lost the Civil War because of internal division or civilian disaffection; others point to flawed military strategy or ambivalence over slavery. But, argues distinguished historian Gary Gallagher, we should not ask why the Confederacy collapsed so soon but rather how it lasted so long. In The Confederate War he reexamines the Confederate experience through the actions and words of the people who lived it to show how the military and the home front responded to the war, endured great hardships, and assembled armies that fought with tremendous spirit and determination.