Awaiting the heavenly country [[electronic resource] ] : the Civil War and America's culture of death / / Mark S. Schantz

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910460179203321
• Autore: Schantz Mark S (Mark Saunders), <1955->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, c2008
• ISBN: 0-8014-5925-7
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (263 p.)
• Disciplina: 973.7/1
• Soggetti: Death - Social aspects - United States - History - 19th century; War and society - United States - History - 19th century; Electronic books.; United States History Civil War, 1861-1865 Casualties Social aspects
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One. "Emblems of Mortality" -- Chapter Two. "The Heavenly Country" -- Chapter Three. "Melancholy Pleasure" -- Chapter Four. "A Voice from the Ruins" -- Chapter Five. "Better to Die Free, Than to Live Slaves" -- Chapter Six. "The Court of Death" -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: "Americans came to fight the Civil War in the midst of a wider cultural world that sent them messages about death that made it easier to kill and to be killed. They understood that death awaited all who were born and prized the ability to face death with a spirit of calm resignation. They believed that a heavenly eternity of transcendent beauty awaited them beyond the grave. They knew that their heroic achievements would be cherished forever by posterity. They grasped that death itself might be seen as artistically fascinating and even beautiful."-from Awaiting the Heavenly CountryHow much loss can a nation bear? An America in which 620,000 men die at each other's hands in a war at home is almost inconceivable to us now, yet in 1861 American mothers proudly watched their sons, husbands, and fathers go off to war, knowing they would likely be killed. Today, the death of a soldier in Iraq can become headline news; during the Civil War, sometimes ; families did not learn of their loved ones' deaths until long after the fact. Did antebellum Americans hold their lives so lightly, or was death so familiar to them that it did not bear avoiding?In Awaiting the Heavenly Country, Mark S. Schantz argues that American attitudes and ideas about death helped facilitate the war's tremendous carnage. Asserting that nineteenth-century attitudes toward death were firmly in place before the war began rather than arising from a sense of resignation after the losses became apparent, Schantz has written a fascinating and chilling narrative of how a society understood death and reckoned the magnitude of destruction it was willing to tolerate.Schantz addresses topics such as the pervasiveness of death in the culture of antebellum America; theological discourse and debate on the nature of heaven and the afterlife; the rural cemetery movement and the inheritance of the Greek revival; death as a major topic in American poetry; African American notions of death, slavery, and citizenship; and a treatment of the art of death-including memorial lithographs, postmortem photography and Rembrandt Peale's major exhibition painting The Court of Death. Awaiting the Heavenly Country is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the Civil War and the ways in which antebellum Americans comprehended death and the unimaginable bloodshed on the horizon.

The Windsor Dynasty 1910 to the Present : 'Long to Reign Over Us'? / / edited by Matthew Glencross, Judith Rowbotham, Michael D. Kandiah

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910154847003321
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016
• ISBN: 9781137564559; 1137564555
• Edizione: [1st ed. 2016.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (XVII, 290 p. 1 illus. in color.)
• Collana: Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy, , 2947-5872
• Disciplina: 941
• Soggetti: Great Britain - History; World politics; Civilization - History; History, Modern; History of Britain and Ireland; Political History; Cultural History; Modern History
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di contenuto: Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: Matthew Glencross, Judith Rowbotham and Michael Kandiah -- Section One: Setting the Scene -- Chapter One: Matthew Glencross George V and the New Royal House -- Section Two: Establishing the Windsor Brand -- Chapter Two: Michael Kandiah, Judith Rowbotham Gillian Staerck The Ultimate Windsor Ceremonials: Coronations and Investitures -- Chapter Three: Judith Rowbotham The Windsors and Ceremonial Events: State Occasions for the National Family -- Chapter Four: Ian Beckett Royalty and the Army in the Twentieth Century -- Chapter Five: Roger Mortimore Measuring British Public Opinion on the Monarchy and the Royal Family -- Section Three: Marketing the Windsor Brand -- Chapter Six: Robert Blackburn Edward VIII’s Abdication: Legal and Constitutional Perspectives -- Chapter Seven: Heather Jones The Nature of Kingship in First World War Britain -- Chapter Eight: Andrew ; Harrison The Duke and the Dictator: Marshal Tito’s Visit to Britain, March 1953 -- Chapter Nine: Antony Best ‘We Cannot Pretend that the Past Did Not Exist’: The Windsor Dynasty and Japan, 1941-1975 -- Epilogue: Matthew Glencross, Judith Rowbotham, and Michael Kandiah The Rise of ‘The Queen’ -- Index.
• Sommario/riassunto: This book explores the recreation and subsequent development of the British Monarchy during the twentieth century. Contributors examine the phenomenon of modern monarchy through an exploration of the establishment and the continuing impact of the Windsor dynasty both within Britain and the wider world, to interrogate the reasons for its survival into the twenty-first century. The successes (and failures) of the dynasty and the implications of these for its long-term survival are assessed from the perspectives of constitutional, political, diplomatic and socio-cultural history. Emphasis is placed on the use of symbols and tradition, and their reinvention, and public reactions to their employment by the Windsors, including the evidence provided by opinion polls. Starting with George V, and including darker times such as the challenge of the abdication of Edward VIII, this collection considers how far this reign was a key transition in how the British royal family hasperceived itself and its role through examination of the repackaging for mass consumption via the media of a range of state occasions from coronations to funerals, as well as modernization of its relations with the military. .