Look Away A History of the Confederate States of America [Paperback]

William C. Davis, one of the best and most prolific historians of the American Civil War (James M. McPherson, author ofBattle Cry of Freedom), offers a definitive portrait of the Confederacy unlike any other.
Drawing on decades of writing and research among an unprecedented number of archives, ranging from the 800-odd newspapers in operation during the war to the personal writings of more than 100 leaders and common citizens, Davis reveals the Confederacy through the words of the Confederates themselves.Look Away!recounts all the epic sagas -- as well as those little-known and long-forgotten -- about a desperate government that socialized the salt industry, rangers and marauders who preyed on their fellow Confederates, and the systematic breakdown of law and order in some states. A dramatic, definitive account of one of our nation's most searing episodes,Look Away!shows us a South divided against itself, unable to stand.Chapter 1: Guiding the Whirlwind

A wag might argue that the origins of the Confederacy dated to the philosophy of Aristotle, who proposed that differences arising from race and regional origin and birth created natural distinctions between peoples and their inherent abilities. Yet there is substance in the case beyond Aristotle's speculations on human variations. Writing twenty-two centuries before the breakup of the Union, the Greek philosopher penned in hisPoliticsa discussion of what he called one of the true forms of government, a limited monarchy. There were four varieties, he suggested. The first was that of the Spartans, wherein the king held office, but not absolute power, by birth or election. The second more closely resembled tyranny, yet it was legal and hereditary, established by ancient ancestry, and unchallenged by the people, indeed willingly accepted by them. A third was the dictatorship elected by the people, and thus willingly imposed upon themselves, an office held sometimes for lifel“¡