From lesser-known state figures to the ancestors of Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, and James Meredith, Mississippi Zion: The Struggle for Liberation in Attala County, 1865-1915 brings the voices and experiences of everyday people to the forefront and reveals a history dictated by people rather than eras. Author Evan Howard Ashford, a native of the county, examines how African Americans in Attala County, after the Civil War, shaped economic, social, and political politics as a nonmajority racial group. At the same time, Ashford provides a broader view of Black life occurring throughout the state during the same period. By examining southern African American life mainly through Reconstruction and the civil rights movement, historians have long mischaracterized African Americans in Mississippi by linking their empowerment and progression solely to periods of federal assistance. This book shatters that model and reframes the postslavery era as a Liberation Era to examine how African Americans pursued land, labor, education, politics, community building, and progressive race relations to position themselves as societal equals. Ashford salvages Attala County from this historical misconception to give Mississippi a new history. He examines African Americans as autonomous citizens whose liberation agenda paralleled and intersected the vicious redemption agenda, and he shows the struggle between Black and white citizens for societal control. Mississippi Zion provides a fresh examination into the impact of Black politics on creating the anti-Black apparatuses that grounded the state's infamous Jim Crow society. The use of photographs provides an accurate aesthetic of rural African Americans and their connection to the historical moment. This in-depth perspective captures the spectrum of African American experiences that contradict and nuance how historians write, analyze, and interpret southern African American life in the postslavery era.

What is total war? Definitions abound, but one thing is certain-- the concept of total war has come to be seen as a defining concept of the modern age. Celebrated historian Jeremy Black explores the rise and demise of an era of total war, which he defines in terms of the intensity of the struggle, the range (geographical and/or chronological) of conflict, the nature of the goals, and the extent to which civil society was involved. He contends that this era (roughly 1860-1945) was markedly different from the warfare that characterized earlier periods; and that it is very different from the situation that has evolved since, with its emphasis on asymmetrical conflict and limited warfare. Acknowledging that various definitions are problematic and often contradictory, Black argues that 1860 to 1945 was an era in which the prospect of war and the consequences of it were "crucially important for human history." He focuses primarily on conflict between Western powers, including Japanese participation in the Russo-Japanese War. Trends and developments subsequent to 1945 have combined, Black asserts, to make a return to total war unlikely.