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Tag Archives: Robert Penn Warren
Telling History vs. Making Art: Fictions and Histories
Final part of a series “[H]istory and historical fiction,” says historian Paul Ashdown, “are alternate ways of telling stories about the past.”[1] In that context, Ulysses S. Grant spoke more truth than he realized when he said “Wars produce many … Continue reading
Telling History vs. Making Art: The ways we remember the war
Part two in a series “We may say that only at the moment when Lee handed Grant his sword was the Confederacy born,” wrote Robert Penn Warren during the Civil War’s centennial; “or to state matters another way, in the … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Authors, Memory, Personalities, Slavery
Tagged Albert Sydney Johnston, David Blight, David O. Selznick, Emancipation Cause, Gary Gallagher, Gone with the Wind, History-vs-Art, Ken Burns, Lost Cause, Reconciliation Cause, Robert E. Lee, Robert Penn Warren, Shiloh, slavery, states' rights, Stonewall Jackson, The Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant, Union Cause
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Warren’s Legacy still asks urgent questions
As a Kentucky-born writer who lived most of his professional life in the North, Robert Penn Warren was deeply conflicted about the American Civil War. That ambivalence, and the tensions that sprang from it, haunt every section of his essential … Continue reading
American Oracle and the dangers of political fanaticism
Reading David Blight’s American Oracle this weekend, I’ve noticed a subtle, cautionary note that keeps playing itself as an occasional undertone. It reminds me again why the study of history has something to tell us about current events—and also that no one … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Authors, Memory, Politics
Tagged American Oracle, Bruce Catton, centennial, David Blight, Memory, Robert Penn Warren, Sesquicentennial, writers
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