The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On by Benjamin Soskis, John Stauffer (Hardback, 2013)
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- DescriptionIt was sung at Ronald Reagan's funeral, and adopted with new lyrics by labor radicals. John Updike quoted it in the title of one of his vels, and George W. Bush had it performed at the memorial service in the National Cathedral for victims of September 11, 2001. Perhaps other song has held such a profoundly significant-and contradictory-place in America's history and cultural memory than the The Battle Hymn of the Republic. In this sweeping study, John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis show how this Civil War tune has become an anthem for cause after radically different cause. The song originated in antebellum revivalism, with the melody of the camp-meeting favorite, Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us. Union soldiers in the Civil War then turned it into John Brown's Body. Julia Ward Howe, uncomfortable with Brown's violence and militancy, wrote the words we kw today. Using intense apocalyptic and millenarian imagery, she captured the popular enthusiasm of the time, the sense of a climactic battle between good and evil; yet she made reference to a particular time or place, allowing it to be exported or adapted to new conflicts, including Reconstruction, sectional reconciliation, imperialism, progressive reform, labor radicalism, civil rights movements, and social conservatism. And yet the memory of the song's original role in bloody and divisive Civil War scuttled an attempt to make it the national anthem. The Daughters of the Confederacy held a contest for new lyrics, but admitted that ne of the entries measured up to the power of the original. The Battle Hymn has long helped to express what we mean when we talk about sacrifice, about the importance of fighting-in battles both real and allegorical-for the values America represents. It conjures up and confirms some of our most profound conceptions of national identity and purpose. And yet, as Stauffer and Soskis te, the popularity of the song has t relieved it of the tensions present at its birth-tensions between unity and discord, and between the glories and the perils of righteous enthusiasm. If anything, those tensions became more profound. By following this thread through the tapestry of American history, The Battle Hymn of the Republic illuminates the fractures and contradictions that underlie the story of our nation.
- Author BiographyJohn Stauffer is professor of English and American Literature and African-American Studies chair of the History of American Civilization program at Harvard. His books include Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race. Benjamin Soskis is a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, and Policy at George Mason University. He has taught at George Washington University and the University of California, Washington Center. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, the New York Times, and Slate.com.
- Author(s)Benjamin Soskis,John Stauffer
- PublisherOxford University Press Inc
- Date of Publication13/06/2013
- SubjectMilitary History
- Place of PublicationNew York
- Country of PublicationUnited States
- ImprintOxford University Press Inc
- Content Note16pp b/w insert
- Weight678 g
- Width162 mm
- Height236 mm
- Spine32 mm
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