The first comprehensive examination of the nineteenth-century Ku Klux Klan since the 1970s; Ku-Klux pinpoints the group's rise with startling acuity. Historians have traced the origins of the Klan to Pulaski; Tennessee; in 1866; but the details behind the group's emergence have long remained shadowy. By parsing the earliest descriptions of the Klan; Elaine Frantz Parsons reveals that it was only as reports of the Tennessee Klan's mysterious and menacing activities began circulating in northern newspapers that whites enthusiastically formed their own Klan groups throughout the South. The spread of the Klan was thus intimately connected with the politics and mass media of the North.Shedding new light on the ideas that motivated the Klan; Parsons explores Klansmen's appropriation of images and language from northern urban forms such as minstrelsy; burlesque; and business culture. While the Klan sought to retain the prewar racial order; the figure of the Ku-Klux became a joint creation of northern popular cultural entrepreneurs and southern whites seeking; perversely and violently; to modernize the South. Innovative and packed with fresh insight; Parsons' book offers the definitive account of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.
#1117625 in Books The University of North Carolina Press 2013-08-01 2013-08-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.20 x .81 x 6.10l; 1.19 #File Name: 1469609746360 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Good read!By stephanie loeraGreat book and you get it right when you need it and easy to manage on phone or computer! Cheaper than other places as well once taking into consideration shipping and book costs.2 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Author Overreaches Ignores Quite a BitBy Alexander C. NowrastehThis book is an interesting history of the Bracero program; the guest worker program that existed between Mexico and the United States from 1942-1964. But the author takes it upon herself to give evidence for some misplaced (and sometime properly placed) theories of gender; racial; and other sorts of prejudice. Her theories added little to the historical narrative and often obstructed it.The author very critically analyzed the statements of growers; as she should; but had very odd interpretations based on the perceived racism or sexism of the speakers. Sometimes there was justification for her opinions but often times she read into them what she wanted to read. Most of the time she denounced somebody or some group as racist and the reader has to be in a position to take her word for it.The author's commentary on the economics of mobility were also full of contradictions. She took at face value claims that Braceros had terrible working conditions. But if the work conditions in the U.S. were so dreadful; why did thousands of Braceros congregate eagerly to enter the U.S. like before the El Paso incident? Acknowledging working conditions that few of us would be willing to labor in is worthless without an adequate comparison to the worker's opportunity cost - subsistence agriculture.My biggest criticism has to do with how the author's selective display of facts to describe how the Bracero program ended. The author did an excellent job tracing the end of the program with changing DOL personnel and ideologies in the Eisenhower and then Kennedy administrations but she left out one crucial lobbying component: Cesar Chavez. Any history of the end of the Bracero Program that excludes the violence and vigorous lobbying of Chavez's UFW tells an incomplete and impartial story of the end of the program.Overall; interesting history if you can ignore the author's thesis; poor understanding of economics; and selective justifications for complex historical events.
