Facing America

Exploring how the face and body of America were imagined both physically and metaphorically during the Civil War, this book shows how visual iconography affected changes in postbellum gendered and racialised identifications of the nation.

Reviews

A study of Civil War iconography is long overdue.... Samuels offers a fertile reading of that symbol system and its slippages. Examining texts of all types--novels, statues, and images--she lays bare the preoccupying anxieties.... Samuels has an intriguing mind, and it is a pleasure to watch it work. Text after text, subhead after subhead, she offers compelling readings and telling juxtapositions of familiar and unfamiliar documents.