Mind and the American Civil War: A Meditation on Lost Causes

by Lewis P. Simpson

Book is used and has been withdrawn from service from a Library. Book has a Library Binding and the usual Library Stamps, Stickers, Card Holder, Library Markings. May or May Not have a Dust Jacket.

110 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[Miles Smith]

Simpson's meditation on the nature of American mind(s) is heady reading. He uses the work to deconstruct assumptions, generally those originating in New England, regarding assumptions about American history. Most notably, Simpson confronts the notion that the founding of the American republic was a secession from history. Both Jefferson and Emerson, the exemplars of respectively the southern and New England minds, saw the United States as removed from the processes of history playing out in the Old World. Emerson especially fascinated Simpson, who saw in Emerson a uniquely New England nationalism that played out the Emerson and his comrades sudden enthusiasm for the American union and federal government during the Civil War.