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Cargando... Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil Warpor Jacqueline Jones
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A panoramic portrait of the city of Savannah before, during, and after the Civil War--a poignant story of the African American freedom struggle in this prosperous southern riverport, set against a backdrop of military conflict and political turmoil.--From publisher description. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)975.8History and Geography North America Southeastern U.S. GeorgiaClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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Where books like Battle Cry of Freedom or Team of Rivals give you a perspective from above, looking down upon the mass movements of armies and political currents, Saving Savannah brings you to the Civil War from the opposite direction. The stories are personal: a slave's attempts to escape to Boston, a blacksmith's family trying to make ends meet despite being stripped of possessions by both Southerners and Northerners, a teacher's attempts to provide education for the black children, the struggles of local politicians on either side of both the secession and the slavery debates. It gives immediacy to the conflict that is a refreshing change from the Grand Sweep of History approach.
Surprisingly, only half the book is devoted to the antebellum period and the Civil War, itself. The remainder of the book covers the aftermath of the war: both the determination of the ruling elite to perpetuate as much of the class imbalance as they could by any means up to and including violence, and the growing infidelity of the Federal government to the concept of racial equality that allowed that imbalance to continue.
Though this story is focused on a single city, it's a fascinating picture of a culture trying desperately to preserve its core even while its outward form is forced to change. From the poll taxes of the 1870s that kept blacks from voting to the 24th Amendment that (partially) abolished them in 1964, from attempts to bust segregated streetcars in the 1880s to Rosa Parks doing the same in 1955, Jones gives us a picture that shows our history to be a continuous stream, not a disjointed Then and Now. ( )