Marxist or Left-friendly works on the Civil War?

[Questionable]

With the rising popularity of internet libertarianism, I've noticed a lot of Lincoln hate on major websites like reddit. Most of the arguments are basically neo-Confederate rehashing - Lincoln was a tyrant, the Civil War was about states' rights not slavery, slavery would have vanished on its own, etc.

I have to admit I'm no expert on the war, aside from general knowledge, so what would be some good books to look at to increase my awareness and hopefully counter some of these right-wing arguments?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Eric Foner is a Marxist known for writing on this period, although he concentrates more on the Reconstruction period.

Marx himself wrote about the US Civil War, which he followed very closely.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm

Marx admired Lincoln, although recognizing him as a bourgeoise politician.He regarded the US Civil War and the Paris Commune as the two most important events of the 19th century.

Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese is about US slavery from a Marxist perspective. I have this book but I haven't read it yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Roll-Jordan-World-Slaves-Made/dp/0394716523

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

For a not-friendly to Lincoln, but pretty legit Marxist take on the civil war, I highly recommend Butch Lee's Jailbreak Out of History: The Rebiography of Harriet Tubman (http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/jailbreak/)(that link might include the full text - at the very least, it's certainly a decent chunk).

[Alexios]

It's not a book recommendation but if you're looking to pass the time then Ken Burns' The Civil War documentary series can be found on YouTube. It takes a pro-Northern and anti-slavery perspective and is generally informative and entertaining.

Edit: For a book you really can't go wrong with James McPherson's The Battle Cry of Freedom. It goes into pretty significant detail about the social background to the war in North and South while not being bogged down with academic parlance.

[Creative Destruction]

Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese is about US slavery from a Marxist perspective. I have this book but I haven't read it yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Roll-Jordan-World-Slaves-Made/dp/0394716523

this is the second time this week i've seen a recommendation for Roll Jordan Roll. sounds like a book i'll need to get!

[bropasaran]

There's a little about it here: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

and check out A People's History of the Civil War.

[Five Year Plan]

Roll, Jordan, Roll is a good (but controversial and highly misunderstood) book. However, it deals with antebellum slave culture and attempts to explain the absence of any large-scale slave uprising in the South prior to the Civil War, by fleshing out, in examining slave culture, how the slave-owners exercised a form of cultural hegemony (another misunderstood concept, even among some Marxists). My understanding is that the OP wanted a book about the Civil War, or at least how to situate the event itself within a materialist framework. A good two-volume work published recently is John Ashworth's "Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic." Especially the second volume.

[Red Commissar]

I will also add support for McPherson's The Battle Cry of Freedom. I read that book in a history course when I was still in college before I had solidified in my political views. It was definitely instrumental in helping me overcome what was taught in my school before- downplaying the role of slavery in the civil war and the social dimensions of that war (for example, why and how were some landless, slaveless whites willing to fight for the Confederacy?) while trumpeting a more relatable "states' rights" that fit into Texas political persecution complex. It's pretty thorough for a one-volume treatment of that war and for that part a good reference book on the progress of the war and how governments on both sides reacted to it, from the suspension of Habeus Corpus and numerous political and military missteps in the North and the South's attempts to centralize and violate its states' rights commitment in order to raise more troops and supplies.

FWIW McPherson himself has been involved in attempts to blunt the Lost Cause narratives of the Civil War- glorification of antebellum south with supposedly harmonious racial relations, downplaying slavery while going behind states' rights, exaggeration of the role of black soldiers in the confederacy, criticizing reconstruction as a tool of oppression, presenting Lincoln as an autocratic, etc. More recently according to his wiki page he had been involved in trying to keep the president from laying a wreath in a monument made by the Sons of Confederate Veterans because he rightfully criticized that movement as a whole for being a conduit for some really nasty reactionary shit.

One thing I liked about this book is that it's pretty accessible. It's not dense like some history tomes and it was written specifically for that purpose.

Foner's stuff is pretty easy to get- his work is also frequently used in education and he often focuses on labor and social issues in his exploration of historical events- in the text he has for general US history he makes it a point for example to look at social structure in the south and how landowners were able to create influence such that threats against them were construed as threats against the whole fabric of southern society. The "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution" book LR mentioned is a good exploration of that period from a more nuanced view than the popular image of scalawag and carpetbagger republican corruption- this isn't denied but again it presents a more nuanced picture of what reconstruction was meant to do and some of its promising gains even in a watered down form before it was cut short, as well as why originally radical voices for black suffrage and integration got drowned out and forgotten (especially stark contrast to the abolition movement's fervor, even taking into consideration some groups' lowly views on blacks). There's a lot I learned from that regarding reactionary violence such as in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana which you can look at here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coushatta_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Liberty_Place

It's definitely a reminder that for all the talk about these southerners resisting against Republican corruption, that their anger was still driven largely by resentment at integration of the black population and any that they felt was enabling that. It looks at a lot of organizations besides the more well-known KKK as a conduit for this reactionary violence from landowners and local Democratic Party bosses.

Foner more recently wrote "The Fiery Trial" which I haven't read in its entirety but excerpts in the library. It was written in response to the attempts to simplify Lincoln's views on slavery and how to solve it- basically promoting a colony in Africa to dump freed slaves in- and by extension discredit the purpose of reconstruction. Foner uses a lot of sources to show Lincoln's views on this matter and how it changed over time as well as how societal norms and what was fashionable in political circles played into that.

These are from liberal viewpoints though; not necessarily radical if not apologetic for Lincoln (though acknowledging for example the administration's oversteps and hypocritical treatment of Native Americans), but they're solid counterpoints to Lost Cause arguments and people who parrot them without exposing yourself to strawmen. A lot of this is stemming from the commitment of the Confederacy's constitution to the free market, much more explicitly than the US constitution's apparently, as well as the usual contrarian appeal since we've entered into a time of Lincoln lionization among more mainstream politics with both American Liberals and Conservatives attempting to claim Lincoln's legacy for themselves.

Interestingly a lot of the arguments that are being said about the South and Lincoln's conduct of the war pretty much echoes what was vogue in the 1880s up through about the 1960s among academia presenting the Civil War as a terrible war with a reconstruction pursued by demagogic Radical Republicans led by the likes of Thaddeus Stevens ruining the harmony of that country for no good reason. President Wilson for example when leading an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg saw it as an opportunity to "overcome" differences and come together as Americans with of course little to no mention of slavery or african americans- Wilson for his part was also a pretty avowed white supremacist, more so than was even politically acceptable then. The commemoration of the 75th anniversary in 1938 under FDR was much the same then, though he used the event more as one to promote his programs by emphasizing the importance of the parks program.

You can look at popular media then too- a lot of westerns produced in their "golden age" often featured confederate veterans struggling after losing everything, fighting against corrupt politicians, or more sappy stuff like the adaptation of Gone With The Wind which is pretty much 100% Antebellum South Lost Cause or stuff like Birth of a Nation which whitewashed the KKK which are pretty much identical to criticisms aired today. It's not really all that new or ignored.

[goalkeeper]

James Oakes, Freedom National

Don't waste your time with self-proclaimed "people's histories" or Howard Zinn.

[Dodo]

Barrington Moore Jr's "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy" is a CLASSIC work that employs class structures and Marxian terms to explain American civil war.
He is not a Marxist though, at least he does not identify himself as one.
That book is one of the "reference" points for any serious academics who write on civil war.

[Jimmie Higgins]

With the rising popularity of internet libertarianism, I've noticed a lot of Lincoln hate on major websites like reddit. Most of the arguments are basically neo-Confederate rehashing - Lincoln was a tyrant, the Civil War was about states' rights not slavery, slavery would have vanished on its own, etc.

I have to admit I'm no expert on the war, aside from general knowledge, so what would be some good books to look at to increase my awareness and hopefully counter some of these right-wing arguments?

For general knowledge of the era and dynamics eric foner is really good at whole scope of political issues and struggles. I don't think he makes a case re: Lincoln specifically, that's not really what he seems interested in, but in his reconstruction writings, there's no, no, no way that a libertarian/neo-confederate argument makes any sense whatsoever. Foner was just on daily show where he told an anti-Lincoln libertarian (who argues Lincoln should have bought the slaves... You know, respecting property rights "job enslavers... Err... Creators" and such. As if 'big government' means freeing slaves whereas minimal government means the federal government purchases and owns the majority laboring population in the south..?) that the notion of silvery dieting out coz invisible hands is irrational because the slave owning class was becoming more aggressive.