Unpacking the Cambridge History of the American Civil War with Aaron Sheehan-Dean
I am very pleased to welcome Dr. Aaron Sheehan-Dean to The Rogue Historian Podcast! Aaron is the Fred C. Frey Professor of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University and the chairman of the History Department. He teaches courses on nineteenth-century U.S. history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and Southern History. He is the author of the award-winning The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War, Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia, and most recently Reckoning with Rebellion: War and Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century. Aaron is also the editor of the monumental Cambridge history of the American Civil War, which we will be discussing today. I’ve been singing the praises of this anthology for some time now…Tweeting about individual essays (there are 77!!) and I wrote about it on this very website HERE and HERE. It was great to ask the editor himself exactly what goes into a such a significant project. We discuss:
The inspiration behind the anthology
Exactly how one wrangles 77 historians to produce such a magisterial collection
The logic behind the three volumes and how each overlaps
Military history and why we should study it
Moving on to the discipline…Aaron explains how he got into history
Mentors at UVA (we have many in common!!)
Thinking about partisan politics in the 19th century and today
Some book recommendations, Elizabeth Varon’s Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War in particular
A preview of his latest book, Reckoning with Rebellion
How history can be a useful major for all sorts of things. #truestory
So…have a listen!
Now I will continue the discussion of the individual volumes and essays in the anthology so check back here regularly. Do yourself a favor and invest in the anthology! AND…don’t forget to subscribe to The Rogue Historian Podcast and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app so you never ever ever ever miss a show. That would be dumb.
With compliments,
Keith