The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Bad Blood
In Response To: Re: Bad Blood ()

Don,

I do not need to see the documentary to know that the history of the conflict in the Kansas-Missouri region is more complex than a "Northern" and a "Southern" view (or any other two-sided approach). What I am talking about is more comprehensive than a single documentary.

Yes, I was the one who provided a counter-review to Etcheson's book. Your review of her work inspired me to take the time to provide my own analysis. I was a little surprised that a self-proclaimed "long-time reviewer in an academic journal" would repeatedly mispell an author's name when writing a review. As for snide comments, I think that your accusations of her work being "left-wing, academic propaganda" and declaring it a "thoroughly worthless, biased, unbalanced book in my estimation," stands out a little bit more than anything I wrote.

I fail to see how your stated views towards the Civil War are in any way affected by where your family happens to be from. I don't pretend to know WHY you would promote Lost Cause ideology. But I do recognize elements of it when I see it.

I also think it is a bit odd that you claim to not have any stake in the "Southern" view of things, yet turn to indeed identify with such a view.

Now, please help me understand something. You say: "My cause is to tell the truth about the Border War instead of accusing others of pursuing an agenda." Yet your next sentence accuses me of pursuing an agenda: "Your agenda is only too clear, and it is to discredit me in any way you can to promote further a Union-sympathetic history, and the current instance is not the first or last attempt if I gauge correctly."

How can you legitimately claim to not accuse others of pursuing an agenda only to literally turn around and do that very thing?

While you may try to feign innocence and state that you don't accuse others of pursuing an agenda, fighting other's "agendas"---whether real or imagined---is your primary mission. As mentioned above, you accused Etcheson of left-wing propaganda (and in your letter on this thread you called her a supporter of "abolitionists"). In the introduction of your book you rail against anti-South propaganda, charge the educational system in the U.S. with teaching one-sided history, and complain about how "history is written by the winning side."

While I am glad that you claim to tell the "truth" of the Border Conflict, I found your book to have a few holes (some fairly significant). And, rather than tell the truth, you seem to simply swing the bias pendulum the other direction in many instances. Overall, I don't think bringing a new angle or view to the territorial struggle is bad at all. But declaring one's own views to be absolutely "true" is a stretch.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is in describing how many feet of research material you have. I'd prefer to judge someone's knowledge and ability in historical study on their written (or spoken) word, rather than how many stacks of paper they have in their office.

By the way, you didn't actually address my original point of there being more than two viewpoints to the Kansas-Missouri conflict.

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