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The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem
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You Are Here: Books About Antiques > Confederate Collectibles > Item 12 of 26
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$9.38
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Available from Amazon
Price Last Updated : 6-25-2008
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Features
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press April 30, 2006
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674019830
ISBN-13: 978-0674019836
Product Dimensions:
8.9 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
Product Review
Coski presents a cogent history of the Confederate flag and the controversies surrounding it in the post-Civil War eraWhile some see it as emblematic of racism, to others it represents historic tradition.
--Grant A. Fredericksen (Library Journal 20050723)
In his comprehensive new book, John M. Coski chronicles the rich history of the so-called second American flag[He passes] along a plethora of surprising stories, anecdotes, economic statistics, and editorial quotations regarding the flag. As a result, Mr. Coski's book is ultimately worth reading. Mr. Coski's meticulously researched book boils down to a simple truth: The Confederate flag means different things to different people.
--Felix Gillette (New York Sun 20061001)
John Coskihas given us the first documented consideration of the dispute over the appropriate use of what he calls 'the second American flag,' and he begins by dispelling a number of historical misconceptions about its origins and identity.
--Edwin M. Yoder Jr. (Weekly Standard 20071009)
In his richly detailed book The Confederate Battle Flag, John M. Coski calls that very familiar symbol of the Old South 'America's most embattled emblem' and he is no doubt right. Is there any icon of the American past more beloved and at the same time reviled than the star-studded diagonal blue cross against a red backgroundMr. Coski's book is not just about recent debates over the flag. It is about its whole history.
--Steve Goode (Washington Times )
No symbol in the past few decades has been more divisive than the Confederate battle flag. In his important new book, The Confederate Battle Flag, John M. Coski shows how it got that way. The battle flag, though not the official banner of the Confederacy, emerged over the course of the war as the sentimental favorite among Confederate soldiers and civilians alike. Coski takes the story forward from there, but his most important contribution is his recounting of the tumultuous story of the flag in the second half of the 20th century, when the civil rights movement emerged, setting loose a variety of groups that made competing claims over the meaning of the flag--and the meaning of the warCoski's book will speak to the flag's opponents as well as its defenders, but his most inspired message is aimed at those cheerleaders who insist that the flag has one, unchanging, fundamentally benign meaning. He shows that the history of the flag is simply too complicated for anybody to reach such simplistic conclusionsThe depth and breadth of his research give his book real authority, and future disputants on both sides will have to reckon with his clear, reliable conclusions.
--Joseph Crespino (Washington Post Book World )
John M. Coski's history, The Confederate Battle Flag, brings some needed rationality to a debate driven by the raw emotion of soul injury.
--Diane McWhorter (New York Times Book Review )
If you'd like to dazzle your friends at the next cookout with what you know about the much-misunderstood Confederate flag, Coski's book is for youGo ahead. Bring up the subject of the flag and then stand back. But if you have Coski's book under your arm, you might be able to turn the debate into something more than just finger-pointing.
--Linda Wheeler (Washington Post )
Whether you love or hate the flag, after reading Coski you will love it or hate it in a different way.
--Theo Lippman Jr. (Savannah Morning News )
A book that explains its history has been long needed, and now John M. Coski has written a very good one which everyone on both sides of the controversy over the flag should read and appreciate. Coski provides a well-researched, clearly presented, and most important of all, scrupulously fair account of the history of the battle flag and the controversies surrounding it, one that avoids polemics and strives to be true to the historical record. The Confederate Battle Flag is a splendid example of how a careful scholar can contribute to an important public debate.
--Gaines M. Foster (Civil War Book Review )
This is a solid and well-researched book. Coski's work is very much in the spirit ofDavid Blight's Race and Reunion. It is another excellent look at the history of Confederate memory.
--Richard R. Hourigan III (Southern Historian )
John M. Coski has given us a well-researched, clearly written history of the Confederate battle flag and how it became "America's most embattled emblem."From Mississippi to Georgia to South Carolina to Alabama and well beyond, Coski provides a meticulous account of the flag's rapid installation as an institutionalized emblem of recalcitrant racism and defiance of federal authority.
--James C. Cobb (Journal of American History )
John M. Coski has written the first full published assessment of the changing role played by the Confederate battle flag in American history. It is a thoughtful, methodical account of how the starred blue diagonal Cross of St. Andrew on a red field eventually came to be regarded as the preeminent symbol of the would-be southern nationCoski argues convincingly that use of the emblem was relatively infrequent and uncontroversial until it was adopted in semiofficial fashion by the 1948 Dixiecrat convention in Birmingham, Alabama. Thereafter the battle flag was associated closely in the public mind with the fight against integration--a linkage responsible for the so-called flag wars of recent years, the diversity and complexity of which Coski details with admirable clarity and fair-mindedness.
--Robert Cook, (Journal of Southern History )
The St. Andrew's cross battle flag--a star-studded blue diagonal cross on a red field--continues to this day to stir fierce emotions. In this deeply researched, dispassionately argued, and ultimately wise book, John M. Coski provides a careful history of that flag, its uses, abuses, and meaningsAs the nation continues to debate the meaning of the Civil War, The Confederate Battle Flag provides badly needed historical and ethical clarity about one of the most provocative symbols of that war.
--James L. Roark (Civil War History Journal )
Coski does not move from a survey of "the modern debate" (which he shows to be several debates) into a discussion of the aspects calling for contextualization and analysis. Instead, he provides a biography of the battle flag from 1861 to the present. He carefully examines the claims about its history that have been sharply contested over the last fifteen years, but his narrative is most valuable for the wider perspective it offers in tracing the path by which the Confederate battle flag became a symbol prominent enough to sustain such vigorous controversiesThis story provides a fresh background to the recent "flag wars" that Coski ably recounts in his final section. As he recognizes, these contests have taken a variety of forms that might be grouped into two basic categories. The first set has concerned the rights of individuals to display the emblem in schools or on license plates or in other regulated forums. The second set has revolved around governmental rather than individual expression, particularly in state flags or on statehouse grounds or at public schools and collegesBy moving analysis of the flag debates beyond the terms chosen by its participants, Coski achieves a stimulating success in his aim to help readers understand the controversies.
--Thomas J. Brown (South Carolina Historical Magazine )
The battle flag is enigmatic, its history has been clouded by political debate, and it is often referred to, erroneously, as the "Stars and Bars." John M. Coski's analysis of the flag's history, its uses, and its various meanings, therefore, is both welcome and needed.
--Karen L. Cox (American Historical Review )
Utilizing contemporary sources through newspapers and magazine articles, as well as primary sources such as diaries, Coski has produced a fascinating work delivered with a remarkable absence of passion involving a topic that generates seemingly little elseCoski has performed a valuable service in shining a dispassionate and informing light on the topic.
--Robert Sampson (H-Net Online )
Product Review
Few emblems in American history have provoked stronger passions than the battle flag of the vanquished Confederacy. To some it symbolizes honor and independence; to others, hatred and slavery. This highly charged icon has finally found the fair and fact-based treatment it so desperately needs. John Coski probes every aspect of the flag's complex history, from Civil War to Civil Rights, from rebel icon to NASCAR kitsch. As readable as it is incisive, The Confederate Battle Flag shows how reactions to the banner have revealed fault lines in our culture from Appomattox to the present day.
--Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic (20050502)
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem (Hardcover)
Let me begin by saying that the author is a colleague of mine and someone I admire as an historian and as a person. He has a tremendous ability to collect facts and reach objective conclusions based entirely on those facts. That being said I grew up in the south and I grew up seeing the Confederate Battle Flag pretty much everywhere. It meant, to me as a child, exactly . . . nothing. It was a "cool" symbol of the south that meant you were a mischievous hell raiser at worst. My brother and I had Confederate Flags on beach towels, baseball caps, glasses and all sorts of things. Now, this was in the 1960's and the battle flag was a pretty popular piece to put on such things. Over the years the Confederate Battle Flag has not meant much more until recently. In the 1980's and 1990's the flag has become the subject of controversy. Should it be flown over the state houses of some southern states? Should it be the emblem of political organizations? Should any government sponsored display feature it in any way, even if the context is historical? Where did the flag come from, what was it's place in the Confederacy and what should it's place be in our modern society? These are some of the questions addressed in Dr. Coski's book. It may surprise many readers that the flag we think of as the Confederate Flag was never a political flag of the Confederacy. But over time the battle flag has come to be accepted somehow as "the" flag of the Confederacy. How this happened is a significant part of the book. The flag's inevitable association with the opposition to desegration is also discussed. I even learned exactly why the flag was on that beach towel my brother and I had when we were kids and what do you know, the flag really was cool! I think the main thing this book will cause you to do is think about ideally vs. really. Ideally the battle flag should simply be an historic symbol. A symbol of the most traumatic period in American history, a period when we tried to tear ourselves apart, a tragic period whatever you may think the causes were. Ideally the flag should be something used by Confederate Veteran organizations to honor the sacrifice of their ancestors. Ideally this is what the flag should be, but REALLY is something else. In reality, the flag has also become a symbol of racism and segregationist causes. In reality the flag continues to be used as a symbol of anti-american feelings. In reality the flag has unfortunately become many things it should not be and this is where the book challenges us the most. What is the Confederate Battle Flag to you? This is the question each person must answer. If it is a symbol of history and honored ancestors let us work hard to keep it in that perspective. If it is a symbol of racism please understand that it is NOT that to everyone. And to many it will never be anything more than it was to me when I was a child and knew little about the flag's history and uses. To those folks, it will continue to go on bumper stickers and t-shirts. Perhaps the book's greatest asset (and knowing what I know about my friend and colleague I think this is a good bet) is its challenge to all of us to THINK; think about who we are as Americans and what place this "Embattled Emblem" has in our nations, in our history and in our hearts.
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The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem
by John M. Coski
Available from Amazon
Price: $9.38
on 6-25-2008
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