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No matter what one considers to be the roots of nationalism, whether its language, religion, political views, or race, there is no question that once developed, a sense of nationalism can be very powerful amongst the people who hold it. In his book The Idea of a Southern Nation, John McCardell provides a detailed outline of the establishment of Confederate nationalism prior to secession. While there exists debate as to the strength and validity of the Secessionists’ nationalistic arguments, they were able to develop them convincingly enough to warrant a break from the culturally and commercially superior Northern states. Gaines M. Foster offers a follow-up to McCardell’s exploration of Southern nationalism leading up to secession with his book, Ghosts of the Confederacy. He meticulously examines the transitions that the legacy of the Confederacy underwent in the post-war South. Although the Southern States’ chances of abolishing their union with the Northern sates had disappeared, all of the ideals and arguments that backed up the act of Secession still existed. After their failed secession, how did the South assimilate back into the Union without abandoning the national identity that supporters of the Confederate cause had worked so diligently to establish?
In order to ease their shame or loss, Foster argues, the South had to insist that their cause was just and, “southerners had acted legally and honorably in seceding from the Union." (1) However, organizations, such as the Virginia Coalition, that attempted to revitalize the causes of the Confederacy did not achieve success. The South began to recognize that it was part of the Union, and the majority of Southerners ceased to attempt to dissociate themselves from the rest of the nation. While aspects of the Confederacy were still celebrated by way of memorial statues and celebrations, “the irreconcilables remained isolated and unimportant to the development of the New South." (2) The fervent Confederate nationalism that had been established before the war did not completely disappear merely because the South failed to permanently cut ties with the North through combat. Southerners still venerated Confederate soldiers as heroes, and residents of the South continued to honor the legacy of Robert E. Lee. However, groups such as the United Confederate Veterans were better received than the Virginians, because while they still upheld the legacy of the Confederacy, they did not attempt to stir up conflict with the rest of the Union.
Foster outlines the Confederacy’s transition from attempts to revitalize the idea of a separate state to the “New South” of the twentieth century. In this “New South” southerners cling to the idea of the Confederacy “for no coherent ideology or tradition,” but, “defiance.” (3) Foster does not portray the result of this transition completely favorably. Perhaps he thinks that Confederate ideals became too watered down in the South’s attempt to hold onto their past while still existing in a harmonious union with the rest of the nation. He points out that, “rather than looking at the war as a tragic failure…Americans…chose to view it as a glorious time to be celebrated.” (4) Perhaps our entire nation was robbed of the chance to learn from the Civil War because, “the Confederate celebration did not so much sacralize the memory of the war as it sanitized and trivialized it.” (5)

1. Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the Confederacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, 117.
2. Foster 75.
3. Foster 198.
4. Foster 196.
5. ibid.

   In Gaines M. Foster’s work Ghosts of the Confederacy, the author asserts that because Southerners remembered the Confederate era in ways that “trivialized” reasons for secession, the South “unquestionably” did not “achieve[] the goal of creating a true nationalism” (197; 4). With extensive discussion of the South’s celebration of the war, specifically through movements that memorialized the Southern cause and the Southern sense of honor, Foster shows how in the years following the Civil War the South experienced the rise and fall of what he terms the “Confederate celebration” that ultimately contributed to the development of a “New South” (195). This New South was defined by industrialism and commercialism, which ironically seem to be opposite the deeply imbedded interest Southerners had in an agricultural society that formed the platform that had prompted secession in 1861. If, as Foster argues, the Confederate celebration from Reconstruction through the election of the first Southern president Woodrow Wilson in 1912 was motivated by the desire for recognition and honor from the North, then few Southerners seemed bothered that their celebration and quest for respect led them down a path opposite the agricultural society they had fought so hard for in the war.
   Perhaps this is Foster’s point, that what the South chose to remember and celebrate from the Civil War were superficial remnants of the deeper issues that had originally motivated secession. In Foster’s words, “Although it served to justify the cause…the Confederate celebration did not so much sacralize the memory of the war as it sanitized and trivialized it.” (196). Thus the “ghosts” of the confederacy, the memory of those who had fought both politically and militarily for the existence of the Confederacy, were used “by various people for differing purposes” and, in Foster’s opinion, never used to adequately “define [Southern] identity” (198).
 John McCardell would disagree with Foster’s idea of a wavering Southern identity and a failed construction of Southern Nationalism during the Civil War. In his work The Idea of a Southern Nation, McCardell argues that Southern nationalism developed from sectionalism in the years leading up to the Civil War, aided by institutions such as religion, print media, and economic tensions. Thus for McCardell, the secession of the South was a critical component in the development of American nationalism, as the war and then reunification (though forced) worked to solidify certain cultural components that necessary for nationalism to exist.
   Foster contends, however, that there was no complete Southern nationalism established during the Civil War so that in the years following the war, in typical defensive mentality, the South still needed to redefine what it meant to be Southern and American. This began as a sort of obsession with remembering the dead, manifest through memorials and solemn remembrance days, that provided very much of a psychological outlet for grieving, defeated Southerners. Soon the obsession with death became more a celebration of the Southern cause, and though these causes were trivialized in remembrance, they still gave Southerners something to remember and celebrate in their quest for justification from the North. Thus while McCardell saw the formative years of Southern nationalism in the years prior to the war, Foster contends that more critical formations happened through the development of the Confederate Tradition during the second half of the 19th century.
   Both McCardell and Foster would have to agree that critical to the Southern campaign for an identity was respect from the North. Foster argues extensively that it was justification from the North that motivated so much of the South’s fervor in celebrating the Confederacy, as “Southerners gloried in northern homage” that “symbolically acknowledged the Confederates as legitimate contributors to the nation’s history” (156). For Foster, the important moment in American nationalism was the Spanish-American War, which brought Southern and Northern soldiers together for the same cause and fostered a great deal of “sectional reconciliation” (145). Later such gestures as the North honoring southern veterans with graves in national cemeteries and returning captured battle flags demonstrated the final stages of reunification necessary for a southern sense of honor to be vindicated (156). Certainly American nationalism continued to develop into the 20th century, but regardless on their disagreement over Southern nationalism in the Civil War both McCardell and Foster see this resulting American nationalism as a product of sectionalism and reunification of the North and the South.
  This idea of seeking the recognition of the North ties in with Dr. Siegel’s lecture on ethnicity and the need of a group to be recognized by outsiders. Though ultimately in the development of an American identity and nationalism southerners and northerners would find themselves united under the same title, Foster highlighted the southern need for recognition from the North. This recognition meant to southerners that the North respected them as a contributing and important section of American society, thus proving that indeed their cause was not lost.

               Southern Nationalism and the Lost Cause

 Although an outspoken and influential minority of antebellum Southerners held strong sentiments of southern nationalism prior to the War Between the States, the culture of Southern nationalism that pervaded the former Confederate states after the surrender at Appomattox was far more widespread and substantially affected a greater portion of the population. Noted historian David M. Potter has characterized this “deeply felt southern nationalism” as arising from “the shared sacrifices, the shared efforts, and the shared defeat” of the war and flourishing in the “cult of the Lost Cause.”[1] In Ghosts of the Confederacy, Gains M. Foster further investigates the collective memory of the Confederacy in postwar Southern society by examining the men, women, and organizations that perpetuated the tradition of the Lost Cause in their memorials, celebrations, writings, and reunions. Extensively researched yet sometimes repetitive, Foster’s analysis of the Lost Cause and the burgeoning New South movement adeptly tracks the defense of Southern honor and definition of Confederate tradition from the Virginia Coalition to the United Confederate Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy.
 One major facet of postwar remembrance chronicled by Foster was the erection of Confederate monuments and the celebrations held in conjunction with their unveiling. The unveiling of the equestrian statue memorializing Robert E. Lee was a monumental event in the veneration of Confederate heroism and was indicative of the intertwinement of the Celebration of the Lost Cause and the New South movement. Though the project was initiated and financed in large part by Jubal Early and the Virginia Coalition, the committee decided to locate the statue on the outskirts of Richmond’s suburbs at the behest of progressive local boosters. In a ceremony attended by well over 100,000 people, unreconstructed Confederate General Jubal Early introduced the keynote speaker, Archer Anderson, treasurer of Tredegar Iron Works and advocate of the new South. After a rousing speech where Anderson pronounced that Lee embodied, “the perfect union of Christian virtues and old Roman manhood,” General Joseph E. Johnston unveiled the majestic statue amidst the sounds of cannon fire and rebel yells.[2] Nearly two decades later on June 3, 1907, reverent southerners again journeyed to Richmond’s Monument Avenue to witness the unveiling of the Jefferson Davis memorial. Financed by the United Confederate Veterans and Unitized Daughters of the Confederacy, the inception and celebration of the Davis Monument was telling of the shift that had occurred in the ranks of the arbiters of the Confederate tradition. According to some estimates, as many as 200,000 people attended the unveiling of the grand monument honoring the “vicarious sufferer of all Southerners.” [3] Nationalistic celebrations at the unveiling of monuments honoring renowned heroes is not, however, a distinctly Southern occurrence. In Italy, Victor Emmanuel II was deified by his burial in the Pantheon and the subsequent construction of an ostentatious monument in his honor.[4] Built on the Capiotiline Hill and recalling the “glories and greatness of ancient Rome,” the Vittoriano monument took nearly twenty six years to complete and was described by the New York Times as “the most colossal structure of its kind in the world.” According to the Times, nearly one million people attended the celebration of Italian nationalism at the unveiling of the monument.[5] Although the Vittoriano monument was a prime example of “the effort by a state to impose the national ideal from on high” in contrast to the construction of the Confederate monuments which was driven by popular sentiment and private donations, it is interesting to note the role of monuments in the nationalistic movements during the postwar period in both countries. [6]
 Another similarity between the perpetuation of Confederate traditions in the post war South and the attempt to establish national unity in Italy was the use of the education systems to instill nationalistic ideals in the minds of the young. As Foster points out, the historical committee of the UCV and many other local entities were committed to ensuring that schools assigned only books that justified the South in the act of secession and viewed the war from a Southern perspective.[7] When professional historian Franklin L. Riley was lobbying a school to adopt his history textbook, he argued that the competition devoted “nearly 27 pages to the heroes who saved the union…and only about 7 pages… to only one Southern hero of the War-General Robert E. Lee.” He went on to inquire, “What will the little children think about the South after studying this book?”[8] Likewise, in the years following the Risorgimento Italian public schools were widely regarded as “the only suitable means of planting the sentiment of italianita by force in the hearts in which it is absent.” [9] The national government mandated that all classes be taught in Italian as opposed to regional dialects and encouraged teachers to assign essays on topics such as, “Why do I love Italy.” In practice, the nationalistic Italian indoctrination programs may not have had the desired effect on the Southern peasantry, but they provided another means to achieve a semblance of national unity. [10]
 Foster makes his strongest argument regarding the ascendancy and influence of the UCV in the dissemination of confederate tradition in his portrayal of the annual meetings of the UCV. The annual meetings were the central ritual of the Confederate celebration and fostered feelings of southern nationalism by renewing southern sentiments in the older generation and introducing Confederate honor to those too young to have remembered the war.[11] One veteran endorsed the reunions because they intensified southern loyalties by preserving in the South “that respectful devotion to its splendid womanhood that the Southern manhood inherited from their chivalric ancestors.”[12] Furthermore, the parades held during the annual meetings provided the best occasion for the former Confederates to outwardly exhibit their interminable Southern patriotism. The parades allowed certain southern men, characterized by the New York Times as the “large, but diminishing, class of professional veterans, who derive political and social advantage from keeping alive as long as possible the memories of the civil war,” to once again adorn themselves in gray and ride on horseback leading their men in front of multitudes of adoring supporters.[13] Indeed, as Foster suggests, the parades fostered unity in Southern society by reinforcing the deference to Confederate leadership that was inaugurated during the war. To borrow from W.J. Cash, the parades of the Confederate reunions served as a reminder to the former confederate privates and common whites of “not only a great body of memories in common with the master class, but a deep affection for these captains, a profound trust in them, a pride which was inextricably intertwined with the commoners pride in themselves.” [14]
 Although Foster briefly mentions the relationship between the Confederate Celebration and the post reconstruction ascendancy of the Bourbon Democrats, his analysis of the Lost Cause would have benefited from a more in depth treatment of the southern political situation in the years following reconstruction. In his conclusion, Foster attempts to build a wall of separation between the Bourbon Democrats, who exploited the Confederate celebration, and the more responsible members of the UCV who “subtly influenced the development of the New South.” [15] In fact, many of the former Confederate officers who held offices in the UCV were also Democratic politicians elected to public office largely because of their wartime reputation. John B. Gordon, whose presidency legitimized the UCV, was also one of Georgia’s leading Conservative Democrats. He helped the Democratic Party gain control of the state by promoting the glorification of the Confederate heroes yet also endorsing progress and commercial enterprise. In the forty-fifth Congress, which served from 1877-1879, 77 of the 107 Representatives from the former Confederate States had served in the Confederate Army. [16] The same underlying cultural ideals of Confederate nationalism that caused more than 100,000 people to attend an annual meeting of the UCV also influenced southerners to vote for Democratic war heroes such as Wade Hampton and Francis T. Nicholls.


1. David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 469.
2. Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) p. 98-103 (101).
3. Ibid., p. 158-(159)
4. Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002) p. 62-63
5. New York Times, 05 June 1911, p. 4; “Italy’s Tribute to Victor Emmanuel.”
6. Doyle, Nations Divided, p. 63.
7. Foster, Ghosts, p. 116-117.
8. Foster, Ghosts, p. 185.
9. Doyle, Nations Divided, p. 53.
10. Doyle, Nations Divided, p. 54-56.
11. Foster, Ghosts, p. 133.
12. Foster, Ghosts, p. 135.
13. New York Times, 07 June 1901, p. 8, “Cherishing Southern Memories.”
14. W.J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) p. 111.
15. Foster, Ghosts, p. (194)-195
16. Dewey W. Grantham, The Life & Death of the Solid South: A Political History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988) p. 4-5.

Edited by author 11-14-2006 11:43 AM
       Just as the victors of war experience feelings of euphoria and increased confidence, those on the losing side must find a means to cope with the psychological, economic, and political trauma that follows defeat. In the case of the American Civil War, the Lost Cause was the white South’s coping mechanism for dealing with their defeat and all that it entailed. Although historians have often interpreted the Lost Cause as a movement that was “purely backward-looking or romantic,” Gaines M. Foster offers an alternative interpretation in Ghosts of the Confederatcy.[1] According to Foster, rather than being understood as a movement that aimed to revitalize the sectionalism that dominated the South before and during the war, the Lost Cause provided opportunities for Southerners to cope with a period of extreme social change. Because of its function as a coping mechanism, the Lost Cause was transformed (i.e., reconstructed) in different periods of the postbellum South as its adherents strove to deal with distinct challenges. For example, just as the Ladies Memorial Association (LMA) and other similar organizations focused on the grieving process through their memorialization of the dead in the immediate aftermath of the war, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) celebrated the private soldier as a model of present behavior in the 1890s, as Southern Americans came to grips with the new challenges of industrialization and commercialism.[2] That the Lost Cause was not a monolithic movement suggests the constructed nature of Southern national identity in much the same way as Paola Gemme demonstrated the constructed nature of American national identity in the antebellum period.[3]
       Foster contends that the Lost Cause should be viewed as an important cultural movement, a movement that provided white Southerners with a strong sense of social identity and unity. The Lost Cause, Foster explains, is a sort of origin myth or a “civil religion” that described “the origins of the southern people.”[4] This interpretation of the Lost Cause is consistent with Benedict Anderson’s interpretation of nationalism as a cultural system, rather than an ideology.[5] Viewing the Lost Cause in terms of culture/religion helps explain why the movement was so powerful in the postbellum period. Much like a religion, it provided its subscribers with a description of who they were and where they came from, it offered a way to interpret (rationalize) their defeat, and it offered a portrait of a future time when the South would rise again.
       Foster’s chapter on ceremonial bereavement demonstrated the extreme sense of loss and grief that white Southerners experienced after their defeat. In order to deal with this psychological trauma, a number of autonomous organizations across the south began building cemeteries and monuments to honor veterans lost in the war and holding somber Memorial Day activities. Foster’s discussion of the symbolic nature of these events is particularly astute and suggests that Southerners were attempting to hold on to the best aspects of the past while simultaneously moving on.[6] Perhaps Sicilians engaged in a similar process in 1860, as they were forced to accept rule from yet another set of “foreigners.” This may explain the theme of death evident throughout The Leopard. Di Lampedusa may have been providing Sicilians with an opportunity to grieve the past and move on, a kind of memorial in the form of a novel.[7]
       One of the most convincing aspects of Foster’s argument is his ability to explain the timing of changes to the Lost Cause, the Lost Cause’s support for reconciliation, and the decline of the Lost Cause after 1913. Advocates of the traditional interpretation of the Lost Cause have difficulty explaining the emergence and popularity of reconciliation. If the Lost Cause is really such a backward looking movement, how could its participants promote reconciliation with the Yankees? Foster’s thesis provides a sound argument for why this occurred: the Lost Cause was remolded by its new working class leaders in the 1880s and 1890s who focused less on the “whys” of the war, and more on common battlefield experience and camaraderie making reconciliation much easier.[8] Moreover, since the Lost Cause’s primary function was to help white southerners cope with a period of great social change, Foster’s argument also explains why the Lost Cause declined significantly after 1913 – southerners had habituated to industrialization and reconciliation.[9] Yet, Foster’s thesis is less successful at explaining the emergence of the New South and its alliance with the Lost Cause. Foster admits that most southerners were skeptical of both Old and New South proponents, and given the challenges of the Farmers’ Alliance and organized labor, it is difficult to reconcile how Lost Cause adherents could simultaneously support industrialization and be weary of the dangers thereof.[10]

Notes:
1. Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South 1865-1913 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 6.
  
2. On the memorialization of the dead, see Ibid., 37-39. On the celebration of the private soldier, see Ibid., 124-125.
  
3. Paola Gemme, Domesticating Foreign Struggles: The Italian Risorgimento and Antebellum American Identity (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2005).
 
4. Foster, Ghosts, 8.
  
5. Benedict Anderson, Immagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verson, 1991), 5.
  
6. Foster, Ghosts, 36-46, see especially 45.
  
7. Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard, translated by Archibald Colquhoun (New York: Pantheon, 1960).
 
8. Foster, Ghosts, 93-95.
  
9. Ibid., 198.
  
10. Ibid., 86.

   1. A juggler who eats or pretends to eat fire.

      1672 1762 1827
 _1100_ _1200_ _1300_ _1400_ _1500_ _1600_ _1700_ _1800_ _1900_ _2000_ _2100_
1672 EVELYN Diary 8 Oct., Richardson the famous Fire-eater..before us devour'd brimston on glowing coales, chewing and swallowing them. 1762 GOLDSM. Cit. W. lxxxv, Stage-players, fire-eaters..and wire-walkers..ought not entirely to be despised. 1827 G. HIGGINS Celtic Druids 221 Like the celebrated fire-eater in London.

    2. One fond of fighting, a duellist; one who seeks occasion to quarrel or fight.

        1864
1840
1827
1804
 _1100_ _1200_ _1300_ _1400_ _1500_ _1600_ _1700_ _1800_ _1900_ _2000_ _2100_
1804 Morning Herald in Spirit Pub. Jrnls. (1805) VIII. 249 The Sieur W-d-m, fire-eater in ordinary to the troop. 1827 BARRINGTON Personal Sk. II. 8 About the year 1777, the ‘Fire-eaters’ were in great repute. 1840 THACKERAY Paris Sk.-bk. (1869) 25 He killed a celebrated French fire-eater. 1864 Spectator No. 187. 627 Sober-minded men..not fire-eaters wishing to fight for pure fighting's sake.

    b. (U.S.) Before the Civil War: A violent Southern partisan.

        1879
1863
 _1100_ _1200_ _1300_ _1400_ _1500_ _1600_ _1700_ _1800_ _1900_ _2000_ _2100_
1863 HAWTHORNE Our Old Home (1883) I. 55 The newcomer proved to be..as he pleasantly acknowledged, a Southern Fire-Eater. 1879 TOURGEE Fool's Err. vii. 30 An original Secesh, a regular fire-eater.

    3. Trade slang. A quick worker.

        1889
1841
 _1100_ _1200_ _1300_ _1400_ _1500_ _1600_ _1700_ _1800_ _1900_ _2000_ _2100_
1841 SAVAGE Dict. Printing, Fire-eater, Compositors who are expeditious workmen are styled Fire Eaters. 1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang, Fire-eater, (Tailors), one who does a great amount of work in a very short time.

    So {sm}fire-{smm}eating vbl. n. and ppl. a.

        1890
1882
1863
1848
1819
 _1100_ _1200_ _1300_ _1400_ _1500_ _1600_ _1700_ _1800_ _1900_ _2000_ _2100_
1819 Metropolis II. 207, I would as soon sit down in company with my butcher as with these fire-eating fellows. 1848 THACKERAY Van. Fair xvii, A fire-eating and jealous warrior. 1863 HAWTHORNE Our Old Home (1883) I. 55 My fire-eating friend has had ample opportunities to banquet on his favorite diet. 1882 W. HASLAM Yet not I (1883) 8 He did not like that fire-eating kind of preaching. 1890 Spectator 4 Jan., The absence of fire-eating among the leading statesmen of Europe.

Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” is, like Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind”, a reflection on the passing of an era. Both authors gaze back into the previous generation when the last halcyon days of their forebears were swept away by revolution and a new government which would change the old ways forever. For both di Lampedusa and Mitchell, personal experience was a significant influence which shaped their writing. Their respective novels have many similarities in subject, themes and characters; however, they differ in their portrayals of nationalism.
 The main characters of both novels are very striking personalities. Scarlett O’Hara and Prince Fabrizio share several qualities in common: they both come from the upper caste of society, both watch as sudden change is wreaked upon their lifestyle. They want to cling to the old life, but are willing to make concessions to the new regime in order to achieve that end. Scarlett was willing to become a Scalawag and associate with people she could not stand in order to ensure she would not suffer poverty; Prince Fabrizio put up no resistance against Garibaldi’s forces, and even allowed his nephew to wed the daughter of one of the newly rich merchants.
 In both stories, the rising middle class is a threat to the old system. In “Gone With the Wind”, this is manifested during Reconstruction, with the invasion of the Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, and free blacks, who accumulate wealth unscrupulously, often at the cost of the defeated Confederates. To Prince Fabrizio in “The Leopard” the threat comes in the form of people like Don Calogero Sedara, a merchant who swiftly becomes as rich as the Prince himself, but has no upbringing.
 A contempt of the lower classes plays into both books as well. In “The Leopard”, this is seen mostly through the treatment of the peasants. Don Sedara’s wife, born a peasant, is seen as “a kind of animal....a beautiful mare, voluptuous and uncouth” (1). She is accused as being unable to even feel affection for her daughter. Her father was bestowed with the insulting nickname of “Peppe ‘Mmerda” and shot for “getting uppish”(2). Prince Fabrizio is also disdainful of Sedara himself, looking down upon his lack of manners and fashion sense. Father Pirrone makes a statement regarding this outlook in his conversation with Don Pietrino: “...not only the ‘nobles’ are to be blamed for despising others, since that is quite a general vice.” (3) He goes on to say that each group or profession despises the ones beneath it, until the laborers, who despise themselves. This contempt is also evident in “Gone With the Wind”, with the treatment of “free issue” blacks and “white trash” by the elite members of society. They were seen as shiftless, lazy, corrupt and dangerous, and it was intolerable when some of them rose to positions of wealth and power.
 Nationalism is embraced by many of the characters in “Gone With the Wind”. The nation caused nationalism in this case, as Secession and the Civil War caused more sentiment for the Confederacy than ever there was beforehand; these strong nationalist feelings only grew more intense after the defeat of the Confederacy. Suddenly, women who did not have a clue about politics were spending their afternoons fundraising for the Glorious Cause, donating their family heirlooms, and nursing the wounded. During Reconstruction, they rejected involvement in the new government, preferring genteel poverty. They fought back against their conquerors by retreating even more into the social circles which existed before the war, excluding all outsiders. In this way, nationalism was used positively. The defeated Georgians of Mitchell’s novel believed in their “exceptionalism”, in the words of Gemme’s argument, and therefore clung to nationalism with increasing fervor.
 In “The Leopard”, conversely, feelings of nationalism are very weak among many of the characters. The “imagined community” was ineffectual, as “Italians” of different social classes and geographic regions could not relate with one another. The visit of the Piedmontese Chevalley to Donnafugata is evidence of this, as he believes the stories he has heard of brigands and murderers. In his mind, “a friendship between a Sicilian and a Lombard...seemed almost miraculous” (4). If Don Ciccio had any nationalist sentiment, it was shattered after the corruption of the plebiscite, when he realized his vote among unknown others were changed from “no” to “yes”. Even old Don Pietrino, the herbalist in Father Pirrone’s village, was disillusioned with the new government for forcing him to pay taxes from the revenue he created by working with his own bare hands and the “holy herbs God made” (5). The only members of society who seemed to embrace nationalism were the young men, such as Tancredi, who participated in Garibaldi’s campaign. Even he later wrote off his involvement as insignificant once he had a position in the royal army of the King of Sardinia. For Prince Fabrizio, nationalism only meant a weakening of his position and a crumbling of the world he knew.
 “Gone With the Wind” and “The Leopard” both portray pictures of changing societies, and the effects that had on the people. The main characters are similar in several aspects; for both, the threat of the rising middle class and contempt for lower classes are held in common. On the views of nationalism, however, they differ. In Mitchell’s novel, nationalism binds the people together during and after the Civil War; in “The Leopard”, nationalist feeling is weak and ineffectual between peoples who differ from one another in so many regards. Both novels were an interesting and entertaining glimpse into a world on the brink of change, through the eyes of unique characters.
 
1. Di Lampedusa, Giuseppe. “The Leopard”. New York: Time Incorporated, 1960. pp 117-118.
2. Ibid., 118.
3. Ibid., 200.
4. Ibid., 172.
5. Ibid., 195.

 Lampedusa’s The Leopard seems to show the perceived inadequacies of Italy’s national unification as reported by the common histories of the Risorgimento and the time after that period. The general consensus of a hindsight-based popular opinion of national unification is that it either failed or at the least did not accomplish its task on the same scale as in other European nation-states like Germany. (1) Thus what one sees in this tale are the inadequacies of Italian unification in the extremes of the new nation-state in Sicily. What then does this extremely difficult and rather unsuccessful attempt say about nationalism and national unification, especially as compared to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind?
 First, The Leopard evokes a certain cynicism towards nationalism and the genesis of a nation, especially if compared with Gone with the Wind. The national myth of uniformity in culture, language, race, etc. seems obviously implausible, as the exhaustive references in The Leopard show. (2) In comparison to the tension and hyper-nationalism commonly listed among the causes of the World Wars, Lampedusa offers a fully Modernist literary critique of the rationality, of such a tidy view of national history, particularly in Italy. Mitchell, in contrast, shows the height of the national myth, ironically expressed seventy years after the myth collapses.
In Lampedusa’s critique of Italian national unification one finds a great nostalgia, that nothing ever improved or can improve in a setting like Sicily, and a new regime only makes the reality more apparent and more tyrannical for persons in Sicily. Particularly in Father Pirrone’s visit to his hometown, Lampedusa shows the pointless nature of the outsiders’ efforts to effect change in a peculiar area of the state now known as “Italy.” Thus, ironically enough, one then finds the same situation in the South as portrayed in Gone with the Wind. Reconstruction involves an outside force trying to enforce a new way of living on a resistant populace, as the Risorgimento results in the same situation in Sicily and other areas of Italy.
Another facet of Lampedusa’s account to notice is the identification of place and person in his work. In the defective Italian nationalism of this period it seems that any appeal to “Italy” is met with disapproval or a lack of meaning. This reality becomes especially poignant in Don Fabrizio’s discussion with Don Ciccio on their small hunting expedition, as the Prince decides to press Don Ciccio on his actual political opinion as to the plebiscite. Don Ciccio reveals that he actually voted “No,” not in favor of national unification, and Don Calogero had changed his vote and others to appear as if the town were actually unanimously for national unification. Don Fabrizio realizes then that something died that day, a good faith, that maybe their opinion did matter; however, the actions of the town leaders effectively killed this “new-borne babe.” (3) There is no identification among most of the persons in the tale that identified themselves patriotically as Italians. Some see themselves as such for their own personal gain, but none contain the vital, pure substance one sees in such a person as Giuseppe Mazzini. Similarly, all the true Southerners in Gone with the Wind become damaged and ineffective in the brave new world of Reconstruction and constant change. Very few of the successful persons in 1860 can retain their positions in 1866 and beyond simply due to the loss of their world.
Thus one sees in these two novels some interesting facts of nationalism and national identity, that both can be seen as a rejection of common values of the meaning of nationalism and national unification.

(1) Some references might include Doyle, Nations Divided (pp. 39, 54, et al), Encyclopaedia Brittanica’s version of Italian history in the period <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9106448>;, or Wikipedia’s version of the story <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_It...n_the_World_Wars>;.
(2) Simply Don Fabrizio’s note of the changes in Signorina Angelica after her tenure in Florence should illustrate this point: Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (New York: Random House, 1960), Everyman’s Library Edition, p. 58).
(3) The Leopard, pp. 82-83

Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, named after the emblem of Don Fabrizio Corbera’s family’s coat of arms and his nickname, thoroughly illustrates Italy’s state over a ten-year span, during the Risorgimento. The Leopard opens with Garibaldi’s forces dispersing throughout Sicily, for the sake of Italy’s unification. The majority of characters studied are unionists, the most dominant example being Tancredi Falconeri—the nephew of Prince Don Fabrizio Corbera, a fervent supporter of Garibaldi, and an “unconventional youth.” Tancredi wants to focus on the “aims of the current political movement in Italy—to bring new blood into old families and to level out classes.” Another in favor, Russo, tells Don Fabrizio, “But I must say that my heart is with them, those bold lads. Your Excellency knows we can’t stand any more: searches, questions, nagging about every little thing, a police spy at every street corner; an honest man can’t even look after his own affairs. Afterward, though, we’ll have liberty, security, lighter taxes, ease, and trade. Everything will be better.” Tancredi once again furthers his argument by claiming, “Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” Despite the evident pros of unification, Don Fabrizio responds to his nephew: “You’re mad, my boy, to go with those people! They’re all in the mafia, all troublemakers.”
 Here lies an example of the different mindset of protagonist Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina. Unlike Tancredi, the representative of plebian influence, Don Fabrizio is wary of Italian unification because of the possible diminishment of aristocratic power and the old regime. Giuseppe di Lampedusa uses his character as a means to understand both sides of the spectrum during the Risorgimento. The reader is able to follow Don Fabrizio’s stream of consciousness up until his deathbed when he raises existentialist-like questions, now that the old regime may lose much of its power. Nonetheless, Don Fabrizio can easily be associated with Gone with the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara. Life-changing occurrences crop in and out of their lives, yet both characters strive not to involve themselves in these episodes. For example, Scarlett constantly refers to the Civil War as “silly” and tries to avoid the topic in conversation, whereas Don Fabrizio tries to isolate himself from the unification process because he is personally opposed to it. Both Scarlett and Don Fabrizio have their own opinions on such matters, yet they remain politically inactive throughout the respective novels.
 The imagery in The Leopard serves as another important feature, as it corresponds with ongoing political changes in the novel. Giuseppe di Lampedusa discloses a vast number of visual images of Sicily while at the brink of the Risorgimento, such as bells chiming Verdi tunes, fireworks, gypsy songs, the symbolism of Bendicó, street-side signs campaigning “Viva Garibaldi,” and “activity of the insects,” which reminded Don Fabrizio of the plebiscites. Like Margaret Mitchell’s work in Gone with the Wind, the seemingly trivial descriptions and details that Giuseppe di Lampedusa shares prove to be quite insightful when studying everyday life in Sicily during the late nineteenth century. Whether the reader relates to the more revolutionary or conservative side throughout The Leopard, the descriptive narrative instantly improves the reader’s understanding of the Italian Risorgimento, thus cultivating greater enthusiasm towards this period in history.

1.)Lampedusa, Giuseppe di. The Leopard. New York: Random House, Inc. Pantheon Books, 1960. p. 76.
2.)p. 118.
3.) p. 47.
4.) p. 40.
5.) Ibid.
6.)p. 77.
7.) p. 125.

Our study of such abstract concepts as the nationalistic theory, ideology, or historiography of the American Confederate nation and the Italian Unification now takes a turn with Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Both novels, though fiction, give us concrete, historically based, presentations of life in the secessionist south of the United States and the former Sicilian city-state of Italy. Both authors aim to show us the characteristics and character of their region’s plebiscite, which in actuality is more of an aristocratic everyman. Through these plebiscites and the occurrences of their lives we are given tangible examples of regional identity and the struggle of each region against its larger nation’s unified, developing identity. As a southerner I feel I can say, Mitchell’s depiction is for many not only the primary creator for a visual image of the antebellum South but her characters give specific examples of the thoughts and actions of the sectional identity at that time. Lampedusa’s novel in Italy could very well serve the same purpose. Though one novel makes for a very limited perspective, The Leopard was certainly an aid for me as an outsider to come to grasp and construct a tangible identity for what a Sicilian, royalist and liberal, might have been.
Though The Leopard gives a significant percentage of its body to detailed description and other superfluous narrations, Lampedusa does present us with tangible examples, and a few direct statements, of the attitudes of late nineteenth century Sicilian-Italians. A lackadaisical temperament typifies much of the Sicilian aristocracy and royalist faction as seen through the “leopard” Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, and an energetic, optimistic, ambitious character is possessed by the region’s and nation’s liberal revolutionaries, as seen in his nephew Tancredi or the mayor, Don Calogero. Don Fabrizio, as well as the other royalist, sentimentalist Sicilian aristocracy of the day are summarized at one point by the priest, Father Pirrone as he explains, “The nobles…live in a world of their own, or joys and troubles of their own; they have a very strong collective memory…they seem vitally connected with their fortunes, memories, and hopes” (226). Their lives are in the past, as their livelihood is built upon it. Don Fabrizio feels this attitude is justified, as well as any Sicilian insubordination to unification, as seen when he comments on the region’s character and past. He states, “This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything…all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction, who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood…all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind” (208). He says this has constructed the Sicilians so that, “Their vanity is stronger than their misery; every invasion by outsiders…upsets their illusion of achieved perfection, risks disturbing their satisfied waiting for nothing…they consider they have an imperial past” (212). Conveniently for him, much of what he says is the Sicilian identity seems to be in agreement with his own.
Once Fabrizio foresees the coming storm of revolution he is hopeful and states, “All will be the same though all will be changed” (46). He thought the collective past would be enough to save Sicily from a revolutionarily different future. But, he himself disproves this notion and was an example as “He has said that the Salinas would always remain the Salinas. He had been wrong. The last Salina was himself. That fellow Garibaldi, that bearded Vulcan, had won after all” (286). Later, Fabrizio is given his chance to comment on the revolution to which he acquiesced, and here Di Lampedusa uses this instance to summarize the North and South conflict that is to come. Fabrizio states, “One of them asked me what those Italian volunteers were really coming to do in Sicily. ‘They are coming to teach us good manners…but they won’t succeed, because we think we are gods’” (212).
Comparing the two novels helps us to find similarities and better understand the character of revolutionaries as a whole, whether they be seceding American southerners or unifying Italians. Both possessing radical goals and ideologies, men such as these share similar characteristics that make it possible for their desire to become more than a daydream. Through the characters of Tancredi, Don Calogero, Garibaldi, Gerald O’ Hara, Charles Hamilton, Frank Kennedy, and more, we see the self-will necessary to produce and preserve such revolutionary ideas and causes as theirs. To scheme, connive, and fight as necessary, we see that one had to possess a good degree of energy, strength, optimism, and ambition. The languid, depressed, introspective character of Don Fabrizio never made for a revolutionary, and his lifestyle of financial ease and entitlement, as many American northerners also experienced, did not breed him any differently. The self-made men of Southern secession and Italian unification had the characteristics, drive, and realization of possible gains to propel them to “self-make” their revolutionary Confederate and Italian nations respectively.
Through the individuals provided by Mitchell and di Lampedusa we may more tangibly construct our understanding of who some of the ‘everymen’ of these nations and period were. But, though these novels can present a more graspable form through which to understand the men, sentiments and events of the time, they are but one interpretation of those men, sentiments and events, biased clearly from one side’s perspective, not to mention the bias or agenda of the author on his/her own. As a Sicilian prince himself, writing after the aftermath and destruction of World War II, it is understandable that di Lampedusa’s heritage and personal agenda come into play in this novel. There is personal and relevant attachment to his depiction of what it is to be Sicilian and there is logical sense for him to hold importance and struggle to preserve that identity. Once this is acknowledged, it does not make the novel discounted. Like in American history, whether through identifying the specific, shared characteristics of a region or their shared past, identifying and strengthening one’s sectional identity can serve to reestablish and strengthen one’s national identity, sentimentality, and strength as well.

     I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gone with the Wind and found the book to be more insightful and thought provoking than the movie. Some of the most interesting parts of the book in my opinion were Ashley Wilkes’ mid war commentary and Scarlett’s evolution from a daughter of the planter aristocracy to an avid capitalist paying “minute attention to dollars and cents.” In one of Ashley’s letters to Melanie he provides a perceptive look at the lost cause and the South’s reasons for fighting the war. Ashley’s views on the causation of the war are quite similar to the Blundering Generation theory and he seems to blame nationalistic Southern demagogues for dragging the South into an unwinnable war. Ashley writes:

 “We have been betrayed, betrayed by our arrogant Southern selves, believing that one of us could lick a dozen Yankees, believing in that King Cotton could rule the world. Betrayed, too, by words and catch phrases, prejudices and hatreds coming from the mouths of those highly placed, those men whom we respected and revered—‘King Cotton, Slavery, States’ Rigths, Damn Yankees.’ ”(p. 209)

Ashley also provides an intuitive look at the lost cause theory saying that even if the South won the war, the Cotton Kingdom would contaminate the people of the south and the old quiet ways would disappear forever. He went on to say that he feared that whatever the outcome of the war, the people of the south would “become like the Yankees, at whose money making activities, acquisitiveness and commercialism we now sneer.” (p. 210) Ironically Ashley’s words foreshadowed what Scarlett O’Hara, outwardly the flower of Southern womanhood, would become after the war.

 It is prophetic that Scarlett returned to Atlanta after the war carrying a carpetbag filled with all her belongings. (p. 543) Shortly after her marriage to Frank Kennedy, now a merchant and storeowner, Scarlett borrowed money from Rhett Butler and bought a sawmill. Furthermore, in order to make money, Scarlett forced Mr. Kennedy to behave in the manner of a scalawag and compel their old friends to repay their debts at the store. By operating the saw mill as a cut throat capitalist, Scarlett’s actions were akin to that of a carpet bagger and the rhetoric of a prewar nullification pamphlet describing evil Yankees could have easily been applied to her conduct. In the McCardell book, one nullifier described Yankees as “low minded,” paying “minute attention to dollars and cents, and … the groveling maxim of senseless ignorance and shop keeping vulgarity.” (p. 48) This series of events begs the question; was Scarlett a carpetbagger trying to profit from the downfall of a civilization or was she a part of the first generation of new south boosters trying to revitalize the region and stimulate a return to prosperity.

 Denis Mack Smith’s Mazzini shows a very positive portrait of Mazzini. He shows the praise that Mazzini reaped throughout his life even while he struggled with Italian national unity (1). Mazzini spent much of his life after his first planned uprising in 1831 in Switzerland and England, plotting innumerable uprisings (2). His primary activities for much of his life were writing and fundraising, both in support of Italian national unity. He recognized that Italy was not ready for the completely egalitarian republic he envisioned, but he felt that his role as the prodding radical would eventually result in the nation-state he saw as inevitable (3). The lack of monetary support from Italy itself continually frustrated him, for he had to turn to English, American, and other sources to fund his constant conspiracies and uprisings (4).
 The high moments of his life came in 1848-49 and 1860, when national unification seemed most likely. In 1849 he became a triumvir of the newly-formed Roman Republic, and Smith speaks glowingly of Mazzini’s role in the government (his only political position in his entire life) and his ability to institute a new republic over an older autocratic papal regime (5). In 1860 he was able to participate in and influence other men to such actions as the annexation of southern Italy and continue the pressure on the official regime to acquire Venetia after 1861. Mazzini was a famous person all over Europe, one whom most that met him called remarkable, one of the great personalities of their age, and many other positive adjectives. Those who had not met him encouraged propaganda against him in Italian and other newspapers.
 Robert Barnwell Rhett spent much of his life fighting for the same type of goal, an independent Southern nation, but he was much more greatly marginalized and cast off after his goal of Southern independence became reality. His life was full of political struggles for himself and for his primary goal of Southern nationalism. Rhett’s activities for secession in the period before the Civil War included many speeches and “rhetorical devices” as well as such grassroots organizations as “Southern Rights Associations” throughout the South (6). The overriding theme of his life was a radical Southern nationalism in many different dimensions, even in his large criticisms of the Davis administration of the Confederacy (7). In terms of sources, it is interesting to note that the primary biography of Rhett until recently was White’s 1931 biography in which she communicates with Rhett’s daughters during her research (8). A simple WorldCat query only shows 2 full biographies of Rhett: the White biography and a work by William C. Davis in 2001. Thus, while most would say his impact was large, his memory has been quite small.
 Joseph Brown of Georgia seems to have a typical Southern background, a “humble origin, meagre [sic] education, and limited political experience” that somehow was able to win the governorship of Georgia in 1857 (9). He managed Georgia until 1865 when the turmoil of Reconstruction began. One of the biggest non-Civil War controversies of his tenure was the question of the Western & Atlantic railroad, whose function as a public enterprise was much debated due to its unprofitability but its value as an avenue for patronage (10). After the war he actually supported Andrew Johnson and his policies during Reconstruction, reassuring him that the two new senators from Georgia in 1866, Alexander Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson would “both support [Johnson’s] policy zealously” (11). After the drama of the end of the war he held several public posts, such as a US senator during the 1880s. In terms of sources, there is very little material from the last 25 years available anywhere. Both the resources immediately available and those I could find in general were at the latest from the 1970s. His resources were more prevalent than Rhett’s, perhaps because of his greater political function as a controller of Georgia for many years.
 Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon I (12). He was born during the height of Napoleon I’s empire, but grew up almost entirely abroad in various locations in Italy and other countries. He achieved political power after 1848 and remained there until the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Marks of his reign included the installation of Maximillian of Hapsburg as king of Mexico for a short while and the large amount of intervention in Italy (13). He eventually tried to establish the Rhine as the frontier of France, which led to the Franco-Prussian war and his ouster. He spent his life after 1870 in exile, mostly in England (14). “Death came from an operation in a house in Kent…” (15). Sources on Napoleon III are large and numerous. I counted no fewer than 20 books on the shelves that dealt with Napoleon and his reign during this period; however, I was unable to find much material written beyond the 1970s.


1. Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 24,44-45, 53, 192-195, et al.
2. ibid., 20.
3. ibid., 33-34, 41.
4. ibid., 46-47.
5. ibid., 67-69.
6. Eric H. Walther, The Fire-Eaters (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), pp.139-140.
7. Laura A. White, Robert Barnwell Rhett: Father of Secession (American Historical Association, 1931), chs. 10-11.
8. ibid., p. vii.
9. Joseph H. Parks, Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), p. 40.
10. ibid., 37-38, 53-59.
11. ibid., 349.
12. W. H. C. Smith, Napoleon III (London: Wayland Publishers, 1972), p. 11.
13. ibid., 175.
14. ibid., 263.
15. ibid.

I didn't include any notes on my sources so I'll give a little blurb...My book-length source was only available on Microfilm (I definitely freaked out, ran to the research help desk while having my doubts, and most likely looked like a fool.), so I spent a couple of hours in front of the screen, skimming as I went along to find what I thought was important, and printed about 280 pages from the machine to take home and read. For the same figure, I found only one book (2 volumes though), and several JSTOR articles.

For the others, I wikipedia'ed them to get general overviews, JSTOR'ed and had some luck, and went to the "Historical Abstracts" database and found a decent amount on my Italian subjects, but most of the sources were in Italian (surprise, surprise). I searched the NYT datacase, the Avalong Project database (a Yale production), and the Library of Congress website--which were all great search engines--but just didn't provide me with ample information. I got a little desperate, so I googled them as well. I found several essays from Ohio University, which I thought were legitimate, so I used those as sources as well. For Albert Brown (Mississippi governor), I went to the Mississippi Historical Society website, and only found information on a "K-12" website (definitely feeling pretty childish right now), but I only used that in the same context of which I used Wikipedia.