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Gettysburg College

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

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Cohen, Joanna. Luxurious Citizens: The Politics Of Consumption In Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2017., Jacob Bruggerman Jan 2019

Cohen, Joanna. Luxurious Citizens: The Politics Of Consumption In Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2017., Jacob Bruggerman

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

To what extent should consumption reflect local and national interests? Joanna Cohen has written an excellent book at the intersection of intellectual, economic, and cultural history about how this question was asked and understood in the period extending from the American War for Independence to the post-bellum era. She demonstrates how citizens in the early republic struggled to understand the consumer’s place in the constellation of America’s national interest, asking questions such as, “’Who [should have] access to foreign goods?’ and “Who should shop and how[?]” (52). Although the Constitution roughly framed the relationship between the American government and consumers, …


Book Review: With Malice Towards Some: Treason And Loyalty In The Civil War Era, Brianna Kirk Apr 2015

Book Review: With Malice Towards Some: Treason And Loyalty In The Civil War Era, Brianna Kirk

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

“Popular understanding of treason, not legal definitions in civil courts, guided actions by Union functionaries, both high and low, throughout the Union and Confederacy,” argues William A. Blair. Popular conceptions of treason – widely shared definitions of loyalty and disloyalty – merged with governmental policy and the military to determine the punishment of traitors both during and after the Civil War. Blair adds a flavor of localism to the traditional narrative of treason in the mid-nineteenth century in his newest book With Malice Toward Some, demonstrating that treason did in fact pervade public discourse during the American Civil War. [ …