They Are Dead and Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America

The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020 reignited a passionate nationwide debate over Confederate memorials and flags as symbols of white supremacy in our public landscape. Controversies about Confederate monuments, however, have overshadowed more consequential battles over Civil War memory taking place in American politics, popular culture, and civil society today.

Integrating the voices of Civil War historians, public historians, and scholars of contemporary America, They Are Dead and Yet They Live explores the use (and abuse) of Civil War memory in the modern era, from the Civil War Centennial and the civil rights era through the political turmoil of the present day. Moving the conversation of Civil War memory beyond Confederate monuments to crucial debates about the Civil War’s usefulness as a frame for understanding America’s recent struggles, these essays show how Civil War memory is as politically urgent and socially relevant today as it was a half century ago.

John M. Kinder is a professor of history and American studies at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran and World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age. Jennifer M. Murray is an assistant professor of history and the director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University. She is the author of On a Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013 and The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861.