First published 2020
Richardson examines how the Civil War's apparent victory for democracy proved temporary. Though the North ended slavery and secured constitutional amendments guaranteeing equality, the South's hierarchical system found new life in the American West. Western settlers had already established racial hierarchies through Mexican land seizures and Native American displacement. Both regions relied on extractive economies that concentrated wealth among white male elites. The Eastern yeoman farmer who symbolized the Revolution gave way to the Western cowboy mythology. Movement Conservatives like Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan later weaponized this cowboy individualism, partnering with Southern Dixiecrats to resurrect Confederate ideology. Richardson reveals how oligarchy survived the Civil War by adapting to new territories and circumstances, ultimately thriving rather than disappearing.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: alternate-history, social-commentary
Setting: American West, South, Mexico
Period: 19th Century, 20th Century
256 pages · ebook · Oxford University Press, USA