Performing Disunion

This book traces how and why the secession of the South during the American Civil War was accomplished at ground level through the actions of ordinary men. Adopting a micro-historical approach, Lawrence T. McDonnell works to connect small events in new ways - he places one company of the secessionist Minutemen in historical context, exploring the political and cultural dynamics of their choices. Every chapter presents little-known characters whose lives and decisions were crucial to the history of Southern disunion. McDonnell asks readers to consider the past with fresh eyes, analyzing the structure and dynamics of social networks and social movements. He presents the dissolution of the Union through new events, actors, issues, and ideas, illuminating the social contradictions that cast the South's most conservative city as the radical heart of Dixie.

Blends together analysis and narrative to examine the everyday choices of ordinary men at street level, offering a radically new explanation of the causes of the American Civil War using a micro-historical approach
Introduces a group of unstudied events, actors, ideas, and problems that broaden and enrich our understanding of the internal contradictions that drove the South to secession
Works to reconstruct the social context in which young Charlestonians enacted disunion, analyze the dynamics of those performances, and discover the common core of what they thought their actions meant

Reviews & endorsements

'Written with flair, this highly original, richly detailed, and analytically acute book on secession in Charleston, South Carolina is one of the best accounts of disunion on the ground. A must-read for anyone interested in the social, cultural, political, material, and intellectual history of the Old South. It is micro-history at its best.' Manisha Sinha, author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina

'In this highly original, unusually conceived, unconventional, and deeply researched study, Lawrence T. McDonnell focuses a wide lens on Charleston life on the eve of Civil War, revealing the undercurrents, contradictions, and utter lunacy of the cradle of disunion. There is no other study of secessionism quite like Performing Disunion. McDonnell’s book will become required reading for all those interested in the riddle of southern extremism.' William A. Link, University of Florida

'… the findings of this study should be featured in many classroom lectures and discussions, and innumerable bibliographies will include McDonnell’s painstaking and admirable work.' Michael D. Thompson, American Historical Review

‘This book encompasses an incredible breadth of research … There are many who might struggle (or challenge) this work as it is a different type of monograph. However, McDonnell’s extensive archival work make it clear he is not taking liberty with his research. It is this type of book-based on a variety of sources, a unique way of reading them, a desire to look at all aspects of life in an antebellum region-that will finally enable us to better understand the origin of secession and who was involved in the process of disunion. It is microhistory at its finest.’ Helge Moulding, Madeleine Forrest

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