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Date: | Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:12:52 -0400 |
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I find Neoconfederate revisionism quite
fascinating. As a student of culture, it is always
interesting to see a group's process
of mythologizing their own history. The Cult of the
Lost Cause constructed an alternate reality for
Southerners through a relentless campaign of
propaganda designed to control the debate over the
war. By hollering the loudest and longest,
Confederates and now their Neoconfederate offspring
have in effect done something unusual: they are a
rare example of the losers writing the history. But
why all the fuss? After all, the South has become
the dominant region of the United States. The South
receives a disproportionate share of redistributed
taxpayer dollars, the solid "red state" voting bloc
of the South drives our politics, country music is a
major national radio format, the Left Behind series
is the largest selling fictional series ever
written, and NASCAR is the largest spectator sport
in the United States. It took a while, but the
South finally won. Sure, you might have to write
off Virginia north of the Rappahannock to new
invading Yankee hordes, but all in all a pretty good
consolation prize for a failed insurrection. One
would think the Neoconfederates would quit while
they're ahead.
________________________________
Dr. David S. Hardin
Assistant Professor of Geography
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Longwood University
Farmville, Virginia 23909
Phone: (434) 395-2581
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
********************
"For as Geography without History
seemeth a carkasse without motion,
so History without Geography
wandreth as a Vagrant without a
certaine habitation."
John Smith, 1627
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