Civil War Pop is a space for me (and sometimes other historians and commentators) to reflect on the Civil War Era’s depiction and role in American popular culture. It’s an admittedly niche subject but, as a cultural historian, it interests me greatly and I hope you’ll find some of the discussion interesting too.

The bulk of the posts are what I call “entries.” Each entry examines a particular piece of culture from or about the Civil War Era and analyzes it as a piece of art and as a representation of the war’s history and memory. Occasionally, I also post on other aspects of the Civil War Era in popular culture without the same “entry” classification.

I don’t really have an endgame, but I suppose you could say the blog has a finite shelf life, since there’s only so much Civil War pop culture out there to talk about before I start repeating myself or run out of things to review. On the other hand, America remains just as fascinated by the war as its always been and keeps producing popular culture on the subject, so maybe we could ride this thing forever. Either way, I hope you’ll tag along and offer your own opinions in the comments section.