Reviews
This book will certainly be useful in graduate seminars and should appeal to anyone interested in the United States, Spain, reconciliation, commemoration, or memory.
--The Civil War Monitor
An intellectual tour de force.... [that] presents a compelling... interpretation of what happens in the South after the Civil War.
--Civil War Book Review
In crisp prose, Escott successfully shows how inertia ruled in both postwar societies, but also how change eroded continuity.
--Choice
Breaks new ground.... A uniquely comparative work that looks at the two civil wars in diachronic comparative perspective.
--Journal of American History
A nice discussion of the similarities of the two civil wars...[and] an excellent discussion of five great dissimilarities between the outcome.
--Journal of America’s Military Past
A useful contribution to the burgeoning scholarly literature on historical memory as a transnational phenomenon.
--American Historical Review
Rewarding. . . . Demonstrates how even unlikely comparative histories can yield great insights.
--Journal of Southern History
An entertaining and rather instructive read.
--Bulletin of Spanish Studies
One of the first studies on how nations reacted to the memories of civil wars. . . . Offer[s] new insights on how Americans have dealt with their internecine heritages of the Civil War.
--Florida Historical Quarterly
An engaging success. . . . This book, well-written and supported by solid evidence, contributes to comparative military history, the history of memory and commemoration, and the historiographies of both the American Civil War and Spanish Civil War.
--Civil War History
A fascinating study of war, memory, and reconciliation.
--Journal of the Civil War Era
This seminal work breaks new ground. . . . Will provide perfect background reading for future comparative works on more specific aspects of the histories of modern Spain and the United States.
--Journal of American History
While we might think of the American Civil War as unique in a number of ways. . . Escott presents a corrective against this pervasive sense of exceptionalism.
--North Carolina Historical Review