The Loyal West

Reviews / Votes

"The Civil War transformed the Southern Midwest's cultural and political affinity with the border South into a strong Unionist (but not emancipationist) loyalty that helped the North win the war. As Matthew Stanley makes clear in this intriguing study, however, the Ohio Valley region led the Northern retreat from Reconstruction and the reconciliationist movement of the 1890s that partially restored that antebellum cultural affinity and pushed the historical issues of slavery and abolition into the background."--James M. McPherson "Stanley expertly demonstrates how emancipation and the postwar struggles over the precise meanings of freedom and equality ultimately made white political culture in 'middle America' as anti-Reconstruction and pro-segregation as one might have found in the South."--The Annals of Iowa "Stanley's study serves as a welcome addition to the growing field of borderland studies and the Civil War."--Journal of Southern History "The Loyal West deserves to be required reading for scholars of midwestern history, nineteenth-century politics, and collective memory."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society "An excellent addition to the ever-growing historiography of the intersection of memory, region, and national politics. . . . Highly Recommended."--Choice "The Loyal West, overall, constitutes an excellent addition to the growing canon of sectional reconciliation studies. . . . Stanley deserves praise for thoughtfully-rendered findings, indicative of a scholar who is deeply engaged with and excited about his work."--Civil War Book Review "[Stanley's] His book is bold and deserves a wide reading among scholars of all American sections and regions." --The Journal of American History "The Loyal West is a smartly written, well-researched monograph, ambitious yet nuanced. Readers will enjoy Stanley's impressive use of language, clipped narrative style, and new approach to a seemingly familiar topic." --Civil War History
"Stanley's work is an illuminating addition to the scholarship of the era." --Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
"In a richly detailed and evocative story, Stanley traces the threads of slavery, race, war, and memory in a crucial part of the United States. He shows us that "the North" in the Civil War era struggled to contain enormous differences and tensions, an understanding essential to any full understanding of that conflict.--Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America
"Well researched and well argued, The Loyal West offers new insights into the underexplored mind of the Lower Middle West and the Ohio River Valley--and through that into the mind of America. As part of the fresh series of regional studies that go beyond artificial boundaries and look at the mind of a region, The Loyal West provides a broad, readable, and sweeping look at the conflicting identities of a place that at different times saw the river as connector or divider." --James C. Klotter, State Historian of Kentucky