A review of The C.S.A. Trilogy (Independent, 2018) by Howard Ray White.
A beautiful thought experiment for Southerners. The year is 2011, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Confederate States of America. Celebrants are gathering in the capital, Davis, located where Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee come together.
Confederates have every reason to celebrate. They have a free, prosperous, and flourishing society, or rather societies. Confederate success is the envy of the world. Why? Because of a limited central government with genuine State sovereignty and a truly free economy. And the Confederacy has played a constructive role in the world as an example and in effective countering of imperialist powers.
Howard Ray White is author of the unique War between the States history Bloodstains and other works and co-founder of the Society of Independent Southern Historians. In the C.S.A. Trilogy he has written an alternative history replete with sound historical knowledge, great imaginative power, and a love of the South.
We hear nothing about the United States of America. This reader suspects that it is a plodding state capitalist-imperialist regime slowly failing of its own bad character.
Real State’s rights allow the Confederacy to enjoy real diversity and tolerance. Peaceful emancipation was accomplished long ago and there is good will between the races. The Confederacy now includes the Southwest, Southern California, some northern Mexican States, Cuba, Alaska, and Hawaii, all attracted by the genuine freedom and tolerance of the Confederate States. States govern their own affairs and have an equal voice in Confederate national matters.
A dozen bright young people, representatives of the diverse peoples of the Confederacy, come together under Professor Joseph Evan Davis IV of Sewanee University to compose a study of the 150 years of Confederate history. Their history is presented in vivid detail–an entertaining and uplifting read.
There has not been and never will be a book quite like this. What if the good and honourable leaders of the Confederate States had actually won their gallant bid for independence? What would the world be like today? This is a highly enjoyable book for all lovers of the good things intrinsic to the South, and, as well, all those today who are not happy with the way things have turned out.
