Illusions of Emancipation - (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) by Joseph P Reidy (Paperback)

About the Book

"There are many controversies and chronic misconceptions surrounding the idea of emancipation in the nineteenth-century United States. Much recent scholarship has sought to address these misconceptions ... Reidy further enriches and complicates our understanding of emancipation in the context of the Civil War. Drawing us back to testimonies of participants and contemporary witnesses of the era and synthesizing the perspectives of subsequent observers, Reidy reveals emancipation as a long, messy process, with contingencies that clustered around the categories of time, place, and person ... Reidy's thematic approach allows him to shed new light on the wide-ranging and diverse expressions and experiences of freedom as it came suddenly, slowly, or not at all"--

Book Synopsis

As students of the Civil War have long known, emancipation was not merely a product of Lincoln's proclamation or of Confederate defeat in April 1865. It was a process that required more than legal or military action. With enslaved people fully engaged as actors, emancipation necessitated a fundamental reordering of a way of life whose implications stretched well beyond the former slave states. Slavery did not die quietly or quickly, nor did freedom fulfill every dream of the enslaved or their allies. The process unfolded unevenly.

In this sweeping reappraisal of slavery's end during the Civil War era, Joseph P. Reidy employs the lenses of time, space, and individuals' sense of personal and social belonging to understand how participants and witnesses coped with drastic change, its erratic pace, and its unforeseeable consequences. Emancipation disrupted everyday habits, causing sensations of disorientation that sometimes intensified the experience of reality and sometimes muddled it. While these illusions of emancipation often mixed disappointment with hope, through periods of even intense frustration they sustained the promise that the struggle for freedom would result in victory.

Review Quotes

"Illusions of Emancipation is a readable, comprehensive account of the success and the shortcomings of the long campaign to abolish slavery in the United States. It reminds readers how incomplete the process was in 1865 and how many shadows of slavery remain today."--Journal of Southern History

"[A] comprehensive analysis of of the journey from slavery to freedom. . . . Explaining the complex and changing concept of home is Reidy's most insightful historiographic contribution. He demonstrates that establishing a new home was much more than a physical endeavor for newly freed people. It involved establishing a distinct identity in relation to the new political, economic, and social order."--Civil War Times

"A fascinating, wide-ranging account of the sundry ways in which African Americans attempted to make sense of their newfound but often illusive freedom. . . . In carefully revealing the limitations of emancipation and elucidating the complexity of what freedom might mean, Reidy has provided a more nuanced picture of African American experiences during the Civil War."--North Carolina Historical Review

"An engrossing and textured account of the emancipation process that reveals the myriad ways in which it was experienced and understood by black Americans. . . . Anyone wanting to comprehend Civil War emancipation from the vantage point of people of African descent should place this book at the top of their reading list."--Virginia Magazine

"As one of the field's senior scholars, Reidy brings to bear decades of immersion in the relevant primary sources . . . [and] demonstrates an impressive mastery of the secondary literature. This powerfully written and deeply researched book . . . will be welcomed by scholars who are just beginning their study of slavery in the U.S. as well as specialists."--The Civil War Monitor

"Reidy peers into the lives of enslaved people during emancipation, paying special attention to their experiences under Confederate authority."--CHOICE

"Reidy's important book shows that the movement toward freedom was neither linear nor inevitable but was and must be constant. In that, he speaks to not only history but our own day."--Library Journal

"Reidy's mastery of the source material is impressive. . . . Illusions of Emancipation is certain to attain an iconic status in the field of Reconstruction historiography. Current scholars and the next generation of graduate students will no doubt be compelled to work through hits theoretical implications for some time."--Arkansas Historical Quarterly

"Reidy's persuasive and paradigm-shifting interpretative framework offers new understandings of emancipation without diminishing the active role with of African Americans in their liberation."--Ohio Valley History

"Restore[s] to view the raw, lived immediacy of emancipation. . . . Peering through three prisms familiar to Civil War Americans, Reidy's book demonstrates the constant reckoning that the conflict demanded of the enslaved."--Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era