Books published by Louisiana State University Press

In this indispensable volume, fourteen intellectually compelling essays consider Kate Chopin's life and art from a variety of critical perspectives, biographical, New Historicist, materialist, poststructuralist, feminist, with several of the pieces focusing on Chopin's classic novel, The Awakening.

Kate Chopin was a nationally acclaimed short story artist of the local colour school when she in 1899 shocked the American reading public with The Awakening. This volume provides an extensive re-examination of both the life and work of Kate Chopin, basing it on her total oeuvre.

A second collection of autobiographical "memory poems" by David Kirby. Kirby confides in narrative poems the events he actually or vicariously experienced - as a child, a teen, a young man - as well as some future scenes he imagines. Little Richard, Henry James and others all feature.

The definitive work on the medical history of the Confederate army. Drawing on a prodigious array of sources, Cunningham paints as complete a picture as possible of the daunting task facing those charged with caring for the war's wounded and sick.

In his provocative and highly readable study, Human Rights: Fact or Fancy?, Henry B. Veatch finds the basis for human rights in natural law. He builds his argument step by step, carefully laying the foundation for his central assertion that our basic rights are discoverable directly in the facts of nature.

One of the most scholarly and provocative books written in this much worked-over period. - Avery O. Craven, Saturday Review

The 30 poems in this collection show Dave Smith turning from the work of an accomplished past to new formal practices that highlight a poetry autumnal in its recognition of life's limits.

Explroes the ethnic composition and history of New Orleans, which the authors argue is unique among American cities. The focus of the book is on the development of a colonial Franco-African culture, the ways that culture was influenced by the arrival of later immigrants, and the processes that led to the dominance of the Anglo-American community.

In The Origins of American Constitutionalism, Donald S. Lutz challenges the prevailing notion that the United States Constitution was either essentially inherited from the British or simply invented by the Federalists in the summer of 1787. His political theory of constitutionalism acknowledges the contributions of the British and the Federalists. Lutz also asserts, however, that the U.S. Constitution derives in form and content from a tradition of American colonial charters and documents of political foundation that began a century and a half prior to 1787.Lutz builds his argument around a close textual analysis of such documents as the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Rhode Island Charter of 1663, the first state constitutions, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation. He shows that American constitutionalism developed to a considerable degree from radical Protestant interpretations of the Judeo-Christian tradition that were first secularized into political compacts and then incorporated into constitutions and bills of rights. Over time, appropriations that enriched this tradition included aspects of English common law and English Whig theory. Lutz also looks at the influence of Montesquieu, Locke, Blackstone, and Hume. In addition, he details the importance of Americans' experiences and history to the political theory that produced the Constitution. By placing the Constitution within this broader constitutional system, Lutz demonstrates that the document is the culmination of a long process and must be understood within this context. His argument also offers a fresh view of current controversies over the Framers' intentions, the place of religion in American politics, and citizens' continuing role in the development of the constitutional tradition.

In November, 1864, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman led an army of veteran Union troops through the heart of the Confederacy, leaving behind a path of destruction in an area that had known little of the hardships of war, devastating the morale of soldiers and civilians alike, and hastening the end of the war. In this intensively researched and carefully detailed study, chosen by Civil War Magazine as one of the best one hundred books ever written about the Civil War, Joseph T. Glatthaar examines the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns from the perspective of the common soldiers in Sherman's army, seeking, above all, to understand why they did what they did. Glatthaar graphically describes the duties and deprivations of the march, the boredom and frustration of camp life, and the utter confusion and pure chance of battle. Quoting heavily from the letters and diaries of Sherman's men, he reveals the fears, motivations, and aspirations of the Union soldiers and explores their attitudes toward their comrades, toward blacks and southern whites, and toward the war, its destruction, and the forthcoming reconstruction.

Characterized by precision of statement and clarity of detail, W.W. Blackford's memoir of his service in the Civil War is one of the most valuable to come out of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. It also provides a critically important perspective on one of the best-known Confederate cavalrymen, Major General J.E.B. Stuart.Blackford was thirty years old when the war began, and he served from June 1861, until January, 1864, as Stuart's adjutant, developing a close relationship with Lee's cavalry commander. He subsequently was a chief engineer and a member of the staff at the cavalry headquarters. Because Stuart was mortally wounded in 1864, he did not leave a personal account of his career. Blackford's memoir, therefore, is a vital supplement to Stuart's wartime correspondence and reports.In a vivid style, Blackford describes the life among the cavalrymen, including scenes of everyday camp life and portraits of fellow soldiers both famous and obscure. He presents firsthand accounts of, among others, the battles of First Bull Run, the Peninsular campaign, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Cold Harbor, and describes his feelings at witnessing the surrender at Appomattox.It is not certain precisely when Blackford penned his memoir, but evidence suggests it was before 1896. The book was originally published in 1945, four decades after his death, but until now has never been reprinted.

Focuses on the challenge that the South's widespread political ideals presented to Jefferson Davis and on the way growing class resentments among citizens in the countryside affected the war effort. The book offers a fresh look at the pivotal role that strong leadership plays in the establishment of a new nation.

The premier secessionist of antebellum Mississippi, John A. Quitman was one of the half-dozen or so most prominent radicals in the entire South. In this full-length biography, Robert May reveals Quitman to have been an ambitious but relatively stable insider who reluctantly advocated secession because of a despondency over slavery's future.

In a region famous for its flamboyant politicians, Earl K. Long was one of the most flamboyant of them all. This biography of the former Louisiana governor explores his controversial life-style and his strong family ties, his raw humour and his political savvy, his abuse of power and his accomplishments in civil rights and public services.

C. Vann Woodward's The Burden of Southern History remains one of the essential history texts of our time. In it Woodward brilliantly addresses the interrelated themes of southern identity, southern distinctiveness, and the strains of irony that characterize much of the South's historical experience.

On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers--James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner--were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Florence Mars, a native of Philadelphia, recounts the grim circumstances of the killings and describes what happened to a community confronted by a challenge to long-held beliefs.

In this indispensable volume, John Burt, Robert Penn Warren's literary executor, has assembled every poem Warren ever published (with the exception of Brother to Dragons), including the many poems he published in The Fugitive and other magazines, as well as those that appeared in his small press works and broadsides.

The society of the postbellum South was built upon two interweaving but ultimately irreconcilable systems: a racist caste system and an economic class system. The caste system was supposed to assure that all whites would be equals above the underclass of black laborers. But the class system that emerged in the years after the war placed lower-class whites in the same economic position as the emancipated slaves -- a situation totally at odds with prevailing white ideology.In White Land, Black Labor, Charles Flynn examines the interplay of the caste and class systems of Reconstruction Georgia, revealing how the efforts of both the planters and poorer whites to retain blacks in a position of subservience assured that in this state -- as in the South as a whole -- there would be little significant economic progress until well into the next century. The caste faith of the white Georgians encouraged landowning employers to seek increased exploitation rather than economic growth; at the same time, it motivated landless whites to focus their energies on the greater subordination of black laborers rather than on achieving equality with wealthier whites.Despite the facade of southern caste faith, the constitutional amendments adopted during Reconstruction assured that blacks could not legally be treated as a separate laboring class. As a result, the measures employed by the planters to increase their control over the black laborers applied to a growing number of landless whites as well. With blacks more free and whites more oppressed than the prevailing social ideology deemed appropriate, the distinction between the system of class division among whites and the caste barrier that separated blacks and whites began to fracture -- leading to political dissent in the nineteenth century and setting the stage for the demagogue politicians of the twentieth century.

In the first full-scale biography of John C. Calhoun in almost half a century, John Niven skillfully presents a new interpretation of this preeminent spokesman of the Old South. Niven shows Calhoun to have been at once a more consistent politician and a far more complex human being than previous historians have thought.

Walther examines the lives of nine of the most prominent "fire-eaters" (southerns who were staunch and unyielding advocates of the secession): Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, William Lowndes Yancey, John Anthony Quitman, Robert Barnewll Rhett, Laurence M. Keitt, Louis T. Wigfall, James D. B. DeBow, Edmund Ruffin, and William Porcher Miles.