This War Ain't Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America by Nina Silber (review)

Nina Silber's This War Ain't Over tracks the use of Civil War memory through the Great Depression and into World War II. She argues that Americans turned to the Civil War to find lessons in national suffering and individual resilience to use in the face of a new national crisis. The Civil War, Silber says, was infinitely malleable to meet one's needs. It allowed Americans to see beyond the numbers and statistics of an economic crisis that impacted individuals and to see a national problem that had national solutions.

Silber's book is important for the field in two main ways. First, her setting is unique. Silber notes the late 1920s and 1930s is a period where Civil War memory became "untethered" from the people who experienced it. As veterans began to die off and their organizations shut down, the war was "wholeheartedly embraced" by a new generation who found the war "eminently adaptable" to their current situation (2–3). Second, and more important for the future of memory studies, is Silber's redefinition of what Civil War memory includes. Her definition expands beyond the confines of wartime to include political and social problems of the antebellum and wartime, Abraham Lincoln, slavery, and Reconstruction. In reflecting upon these various memories and interpretations, Silber is able to show how varied, pliable, and useful the memory of the Civil War was for Depression-era Americans.

Silber's work is most successful when she focuses on a particular idea, which she does in chapters on slavery, Abraham Lincoln, and the influence of the Lost Cause and Reconstruction. In each of these chapters, Silber uses the intersection of politics and culture to prove her argument. Each chapter is well constructed as Silber guides the reader through different collections of sources. Silber is always careful to explain how each grouping creates arguments that build upon each other. For example, in her section on slavery, Silber analyzes how the term slavery took on new meaning in the wake of the Great Depression. No longer did it only apply to African Americans; it also applied to the national crisis of "white slavery." The continued plight of African Americans was seen as a deeply embedded cultural issue. The enslavement of white Americans, on the other hand, was seen as a problem that could be solved through a new Emancipation Proclamation brought by Roosevelt and the New Deal. Silber describes an "addiction" to Lincoln fueled by publications like Carl Sandburg's six-book biography on Lincoln, by movie and theater productions, and by a need to justify the growth of federal power to solve a contemporary American crisis. Silber often notes the power of Sandburg, as his commentaries and influence on cultural depictions of Lincoln seemed ubiquitous. The "mysterious" Lincoln described by Sandburg could deflect any deep analysis of the sixteenth president's actions and instead see him as a leader to be admired for his "humanitarianism" and use of federal power for good. In her fifth chapter, Silber tackles the power and mythos of the Lost Cause made so popular by the release of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. Silber uses the film and its characters, like Scarlett O'Hara, to explain how deeply the film resonated with Americans. Just as many white Americans were "enslaved" by the Depression, Gone with the Wind provided a message of resilience; that with the "right spirit and gumption," Americans could overcome their struggles "just like southerners of long ago" (130).

Nina Silber's This War Ain't Over deserves high praise for its broad use of sources, its concise argument, and its addition to Civil War memory in a new and unique historical setting. In a present where Civil War memory is hotly contested, Silber's work is vital in showing the ways the war has been used in past American crises. Her broadened definition...