Tag: thomas j. brown

Thomas J. Brown: Rumors of War in Richmond

Today we welcome a guest post from Thomas J. Brown, author of Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America, out now from UNC Press. This sweeping new assessment of Civil War monuments unveiled in the United States between the 1860s and 1930s argues that they were pivotal to a national embrace of military values. Americans’ wariness of standing armies… Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown: Rumors of War in Richmond

Thomas J. Brown: Statue and Statute

Today, we welcome a guest post from Thomas J. Brown, author of Civil War Canon:  Sites of Confederate Memory in South Carolina, just published in paperback by UNC Press. In this expansive history of South Carolina’s commemoration of the Civil War era, Thomas J. Brown uses the lens of place to examine the ways that landmarks of Confederate memory have… Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown: Statue and Statute

Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting

Twitter is more similar to commemorative forms that have flourished since the mid-twentieth century. It appeals to commercialized recreation rather than ritualized reverence, much as the Confederate battle flag gained visibility through college sports and sustained influence through sales of t-shirts and beach towels. Enthusiasm for social media is part of the celebration of technology that has recently reshaped memory of the Hunley submarine. The concept of historical “live tweeting” resembles efforts of Civil War re-enactors to reproduce conditions of the past, such as the real-time unfolding of events, though my day-by-day chronicle does not pretend to offer the “period rush” some hobbyists find in simulation. Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting