More movies have been produced about the Civil War than about any other aspect of American history. From 1903 (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) to the present, film studios have released more than eight hundred silent and sound pictures about the nation’s most cataclysmic event. In this wonderfully comprehensive study, Bruce Chadwick first shows us how historians, journalists, playwrights, poets and novelists of the late nineteenth century—partly as an effort to reconcile former antagonists—rewrote the war’s history to create enduring legends, most of which had no basis in reality. Early silent films followed their example, presenting egregiously distorted—and anti-black—stories about the war, which viewers accepted as truth. Dr. Chadwick gives us a clear (and sometimes humorous) recounting of those films’ plots and themes, including D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and goes on to describe dozens of movies from the twenties and thirties, among them the classic Gone With the Wind. In the forties and fifties many westerns were partly or chiefly based on the Civil War, presenting veterans of both armies gone West to make a new life in the territories, now united in their hatred of the Indians, another minority group. Collectively, all these films created a deeply mythologized and racist version of the war, and of the antebellum period that preceded it and the Reconstruction era that followed. It was a war that, on film, no one actually started (unless they were radical abolitionists) and no one really lost. The movies gave us what the author calls a “moonlight-and-magnolias” view of the past, filled with gallant cavaliers, a saintly Abraham Lincoln, Scarlett and Rhett, brave Northern warriors and beautiful Southern belles. Slaves were portrayed as obedient servants pouring mint juleps, as happy “darkies” toiling long hours in the field for lovable and benevolent masters, or as mere background pieces, like furniture or bales of hay—and, once freed, as menacing and vicious. Thus, Dr. Chadwick tells us, Americans were given segregation and racism on screen in a way that not only validated the racism they saw in their everyday lives but also helped to maintain it. Even after the civil rights movement, which inspired powerful films like Glory that portrayed the courage of black soldiers, such prejudicial films did not entirely disappear. The Reel Civil War is a book about the power and the perils of both movies and mythmaking, but more than that, it is a book about the American people and how for a very long period their false ideas about their country’s history—in this case a terrible war—were perpetuated by Hollywood.

The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film

Humor & Entertainment

Chadwick, Bruce

Movies

KNOPF

During the late nineteenth century, magazines, newspapers, novelists, and even historians presented a revised version of the Civil War that, intending to reconcile the former foes, downplayed the issues of slavery and racial injustice, and often promoted and reinforced the worst racial stereotypes. The Reel Civil War tells the history of how these misrepresentations of history made their way into movies. More than 800 films have been made about the Civil War. Citing such classics as Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind as well as many other films, Bruce Chadwick shows how most of them have, until recently, projected an image of gallant soldiers, beautiful belles, sprawling plantations, and docile or dangerous slaves. He demonstrates how the movies aided and abetted racism and an inaccurate view of American history, providing a revealing and important account of the power of cinema to shape our understanding of historical truth.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation

""A good story, well told, of a sliver of life in Richmond, a small, elite-driven capital city in the young nation's most influential state.""
—Publishers Weekly
George Wythe clung to the mahogany banister as he inched down the staircase of his comfortable Richmond, Virginia, home. Doubled over in agony, he stumbled to the kitchen in search of help. There he found his maid, Lydia Broadnax, and his young protegé, Michael Brown, who were also writhing in distress. Hours later, when help arrived, Wythe was quick to tell anyone who would listen, ""I am murdered."" Over the next two weeks, as Wythe suffered a long and painful death, insults would be added to his mortal injury.
I Am Murdered tells the bizarre true story of Wythe's death and the subsequent trial of his grandnephew and namesake, George Wythe Sweeney, for the crime—unquestionably the most sensational and talked-about court case of the era. Hinging on hit-and-miss forensics, the unreliability of medical autopsies, the prevalence of poisoning, race relations, slavery, and the law, Sweeney's trial serves as a window into early nineteenth- century America. Its particular focus is on Richmond, part elegant state capital and part chaotic boomtown riddled with vice, opportunism, and crime.
As Wythe lay dying, his doctors insisted that he had not been poisoned, and Sweeney had the nerve to beg him for bail money. In I Am Murdered, this signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor to Thomas Jefferson, and ""Father of American Jurisprudence"" finally gets the justice he deserved.

History

Americas

Trade Paper Press

Discusses the wide variety of baseball collectibles on the market, and suggests good and bad investment values in cards, autographs, balls, coins, and more

How to Buy, Trade, and Invest in Baseball Cards and Collectibles: Smart Strategies for Starting, Building & Enjoying Your Collection

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Peary, Danny

Crafts & Hobbies

Fireside

The Two American Presidents: A Dual Biography of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Book Sales

Recounts Namath's life and football career as the quarterback of the New York Jets whose success helped bring about the merger of the National and American Football Leagues

Joe Namath (Football Legends)

Chelsea House Pub

Examines the life of the colorful and hard-working Florida football player who became known as "Neion Deion."

Deion Sanders (Football Legends)

Children's Books

Discusses the Salem witch trials, the court-martial of Benedict Arnold, and the cases of the Chicago Black Sox, John Scopes, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Scottsboro Boys, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the Chicago Seven

Infamous Trials (Crime Series)

Review\n"The Creole mutiny was a blazing landmark in the torturous journey toward the abolition of slavery in the United States. This informative and well-written book provides a rendering of this turning point that must not only be read, but studied."--Gerald Horne, author of Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation\n"One of the most dramatic events in the sorry history of American slavery was the 1841 successful revolt on board the slave-trading ship Creole. Overpowering the ship's crew and sailing to the British Bahamas, over one hundred slaves found freedom. In this eminently readable and meticulously researched book, Bruce Chadwick examines the revolt as well as its political, legal, and diplomatic fallout. This will be the definitive study for years to come."--Kerry Walters, author of American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide\n"Bruce Chadwick is a historian who never forgets that his chief task is to tell a good story. The story of the Creole, no doubt the most successful of all slave insurrections, presents what may be one of the few bright spots in the grim history of American slavery. It is fascinating in itself, but it also illuminates the other slave insurrections, on land and sea, of which too many Americans might otherwise be unaware."--Michael Aaron Rockland, author of An American Diplomat in Franco Spain\nThe Creole Rebellion tells the suspenseful story of a successful mutiny on board the slave ship Creole. En route for a New Orleans slave-auction block in November 1841, nineteen captives mutinied, killing one man and injuring several others. After taking control of the vessel, mutineer Madison Washington forced the crewmen to sail to the Bahamas. Despite much local hysteria upon their arrival, all of the 135 slaves aboard the ship won their freedom there.\nThe revolt significantly fueled and amplified the slave debate within a divided nation that was already hurtling toward a Civil War. While this is a book about the United States confronting the ugly and tumultuous issue of slavery, it is also about the 135 enslaved men and women who were unwilling to take their oppression any longer and rose up to free themselves in a bloody fight. Part history, part adventure, and part legal drama, Bruce Chadwick chronicles the most successful slave revolt in the pages of American history.

The Creole Rebellion: The Most Successful Slave Revolt in American History

University of New Mexico Press

Recounts Florida State's 1993 championship season, briefly describes the author's college career, and tells what football has meant to him

Seminole Seasons: Florida State's Rise to the Nation Title

Reynolds, Burt

Taylor Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chadwick, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Chadwick, Bruce

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chadwick, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film

The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film

I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation

How to Buy, Trade, and Invest in Baseball Cards and Collectibles: Smart Strategies for Starting, Building & Enjoying Your Collection

The Two American Presidents: A Dual Biography of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis

Joe Namath (Football Legends)

Deion Sanders (Football Legends)

Infamous Trials (Crime Series)

The Creole Rebellion: The Most Successful Slave Revolt in American History

Seminole Seasons: Florida State's Rise to the Nation Title