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Title: The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan by Cary D. Wintz, Thomas, Jr. Dixon ISBN: 0-7656-0616-X Publisher: M.E.Sharpe Pub. Date: December, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $66.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.3 (10 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Hatred Masked as Literature
Comment: This book's history is all too well known. It indeed was the inspiration for D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation." Griffith's film was a masterpiece of cinematic brilliance, and at the same time, a disgusting excuse for the most virulent kind of racism. The latter can be said of Dixon's book. But the book does not have Griffith's artistic merits.
This book should be read as an historical artifact, to give the reader a sense how powerful people in the South thought when they turned Reconstruction on its ear. There were many things wrong with how the South was treated after the war (more so due to Lincoln's assassination). Its attempt to bring some sense of dignity and equality to the ex-slaves was not wrong. With the advent of Jim Crow laws, the South proved beyond a doubt that slavery played a major role in the Civil War, despite what some apologists of today say.
I think it is especially sad when I read reviews that equate this book with history. It is not history, it is not fact. It is an example of the type of thinking that went on when the South decided that once again African Americans were not to be considered equal. Separate But Equal always was a lie. And so is so much of what Dixon espoused in this book.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Novel As American Swill
Comment: ... Not only is it a horribly misguided view of history, it doesn't even resemble anything that comes close to reasonable. Perhaps historical ignorance would be more appropriate. ...To consider its literary merits, I don't believe it has any. I dismiss any historical importance it may have as simply a relic of one huge problem in American culture. The film based off of it may be important in terms of cinematic history, but this book does not qualify the same way at all. I am certainly glad that this is not taught anywhere near schools, the history books they do use are messed up enough. Teaching this book would be truly tragic. Saying every Southener should read this is like saying every Jew should read Mein Kumf(sp?). It's nonsense. Not only were the reports of freed slave violence on the whites nearly non existent any incidents paled in comparison to what the Klu Klux Klan did to them. Their reign of terror is a plight on this civilization and romanticizing it is just plain deplorable. Perhaps I am biased. ... It just doesn't work for me. And saying that every southener should find meaning in this work, is a deep insult to anyone who has ever lived in the South.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Southern View of Reconstruction
Comment: As a novel, The Clansman has many faults, but as a popular exposition of the Dunning interpretation of Reconstruction (pro-Southern, anti-radical republican), it is excellent. First published in 1905 (my copy has pictures from 'The Birth of a Nation' so it's post-1915), it was written by the descendent of a Klansman in the glow of the reconciliation of North and South that was finally symbolically completed in the Spanish-American War - when two former Confederate generals (Joe Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee) returned to the National colors to serve against the Spanish.
The novel's historical significance is enhanced beause it was the basis for D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, one of the dozen or so greatest American films.
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Title:The Birth of a Nation ASIN: 6305130949 Publisher: Image Entertainment Pub. Date: 14 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.99 |
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Title: The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden-1865-1900 by C. D. Williams, Thomas, Jr. Dixon ISBN: 1565549813 Publisher: Pelican Pub Co Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Civil War and Reconstruction by David Herbert Donald, Jean H. Baker, Michael F. Holt, Michael Holt ISBN: 0393974278 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $54.00 |
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Title: Confederates in the Attic : Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz ISBN: 067975833X Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 22 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 by Kenneth M. Stampp ISBN: 039470388X Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 12 October, 1967 List Price(USD): $13.60 |
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