Heather Cox Richardson: 2020 National Book Festival

While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a “new birth of freedom,” Heather Cox Richardson’s new provocative work, “How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America” (Oxford University), argues that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system of racial dominance that had sustained the South soon moved west and established a foothold. Settlers proceeded to seize Mexican land and oppress Native Americans, cementing racial hierarchies.