
A Freedom Bought with Blood
African American War Literature from the Civil War to World War II
Jennifer C. James(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 30. September 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-8078-5807-3 (ISBN)
Description
In the first comprehensive study of African American war literature, Jennifer James analyzes fiction, poetry, autobiography, and histories about the major wars waged before the desegregation of the U.S. military in 1948. Examining literature about the Civil War, the Spanish-American Wars, World War I, and World War II, James introduces a range of rare and understudied texts by writers such as Victor Daly, F. Grant Gilmore, William Gardner Smith, and Susie King Taylor. She argues that works by these as well as canonical writers such as William Wells Brown, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Gwendolyn Brooks mark a distinctive contribution to African American letters. In establishing African American war literature as a long-standing literary genre in its own right, James also considers the ways in which this writing, centered as it is on moments of national crisis, complicated debates about black identity and African Americans' claims to citizenship. In a provocative assessment, James argues that the very ambivalence over the use of violence as a political instrument defines African American war writing and creates a compelling, contradictory body of literature that defies easy summary.
More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
577 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8078-5807-3 (9780807858073)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jennifer C. James
A Freedom Bought with Blood
African American War Literature from the Civil War to World War II
E-Book
09/2012
The University of North Carolina Press
€29.49
Available for download
Person
JENNIFER C. JAMES is assistant professor of English and Africana studies at George Washington University.