Collisions of Conflict: Studies in American History and Culture, 1820 - 1920

Jerzy Sobieraj

Abstract

The book explores and analyzes the problems and challenges that have resulted from the American Civil War, Reconstruction, slavery, and segregation in North America. These painful chapters in American history have continued along racial and regional lines and are of particular interest today when the USA are for the first time governed by an African American president. The Author in the context of "now" - the newly arrived presence - analyzes past events, since the past is always "the past of a different presence." The postscriptum extends the main narrative by focusing on selected writers' activities and literary fiction during the Civil War and Reconstruction.