title: The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem
author:  John M. Coski 
description: Coski presents a cogent history of the Confederate flag and the controversies surrounding it in the post-Civil War era...While some see it as emblematic of racism, to others it represents historic tradition. (Grant A. Fredericksen <i>Library Journal</i> 2005-04-01)<br /><br />In his comprehensive new book, John M. Coski chronicles the rich history of the so-called second American flag...[He passes] along a plethora of surprising stories, anecdotes, economic statistics, and editorial quotations regarding the flag. As a result, Mr. Coski's book is ultimately worth reading. Mr. Coski's meticulously researched book boils down to a simple truth: The Confederate flag means different things to different people. (Felix Gillette <i>New York Sun</i> 2005-03-14)<br /><br />John Coski...has given us the first documented consideration of the dispute over the appropriate use of what he calls 'the second American flag,' and he begins by dispelling a number of historical misconceptions about its origins and identity. (Edwin M. Yoder Jr. <i>Weekly Standard</i> 2005-05-02)<br /><br />In his richly detailed book <i>The Confederate Battle Flag</i>, John M. Coski calls that very familiar symbol of the Old South 'America's most embattled emblem' and he is no doubt right. Is there any icon of the American past more beloved and at the same time reviled than the star-studded diagonal blue cross against a red background...Mr. Coski's book is not just about recent debates over the flag. It is about its whole history. (Steve Goode <i>Washington Times</i> 2005-04-24)<br /><br />No symbol in the past few decades has been more divisive than the Confederate battle flag. In his important new book, <i>The Confederate Battle Flag</i>, John M. Coski shows how it got that way. The battle flag, though not the official banner of the Confederacy, emerged over the course of the war as the sentimental favorite among Confederate soldiers and civilians alike. Coski takes the story forward from there, but his most important contribution is his recounting of the tumultuous story of the flag in the second half of the 20th century, when the civil rights movement emerged, setting loose a variety of groups that made competing claims over the meaning of the flag--and the meaning of the war...Coski's book will speak to the flag's opponents as well as its defenders, but his most inspired message is aimed at those cheerleaders who insist that the flag has one, unchanging, fundamentally benign meaning. He shows that the history of the flag is simply too complicated for anybody to reach such simplistic conclusions...The depth and breadth of his research give his book real authority, and future disputants on both sides will have to reckon with his clear, reliable conclusions. (Joseph Crespino <i>Washington Post Book World</i> 2005-05-22)<br /><br />John M. Coski's history, <i>The Confederate Battle Flag</i>, brings some needed rationality to a debate driven by the raw emotion of soul injury. (Diane McWhorter <i>New York Times Book Review</i> 2005-04-03)<br /><br />If you'd like to dazzle your friends at the next cookout with what you know about the much-misunderstood Confederate flag, Coski's book is for you...Go ahead. Bring up the subject of the flag and then stand back. But if you have Coski's book under your arm, you might be able to turn the debate into something more than just finger-pointing. (Linda Wheeler <i>Washington Post</i> 2005-08-11)<br /><br />Whether you love or hate the flag, after reading Coski you will love it or hate it in a different way. (Theo Lippman Jr. <i>Savannah Morning News</i> 2005-07-23)<br /><br />A book that explains its history has been long needed, and now John M. Coski has written a very good one which everyone on both sides of the controversy over the flag should read and appreciate. Coski provides a well-researched, clearly presented, and most important of all, scrupulously fair account of the history of the battle flag and the controversies surrounding it, one that avoids polemics and strives to be true to the historical record. <i>The Confederate Battle Flag</i> is a splendid example of how a careful scholar can contribute to an important public debate. (Gaines M. Foster <i>Civil War Book Review</i>)<br /><br />This is a solid and well-researched book. Coski's work is very much in the spirit of...David Blight's <i>Race and Reunion</i>. It is another excellent look at the history of Confederate memory. (Richard R. Hourigan III <i>Southern Historian</i>)
zlib_text: The Confederate Battle Flag
  
  The Confederate
  Battle Flag
  Amer ica’s Most Embattled Emblem
  john m. coski
  THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
  HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
  Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
  2005
  
  Copyright © 2005 by John M. Coski
  a l l r i g h t s r e s e r ve d
  Printed in the United States of America
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  Coski, John M.
  The Confederate battle ﬂag : a history of America’s most embattled emblem /
  John M. Coski.
  p.
  cm.
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 0-674-01722-6 (alk. paper)
  1. Flags—Confederate States of America.
  2. United States—History—Civil War,
  1861–1865—Flags.
  3. Symbolism in politics—Southern States.
  4. Symbolism in
  politics—United States.
  I. Title.
  CR113.5.C67 2005
  929.9�2�0975—dc22
  2004055407
  
  To the memory of Christopher Dean Fullerton,
  a serious student of southern history who could
  make us laugh at anything—even southern history.
  
  Preface
  On July 12, 1993, the public debate over the Confederate ﬂag foun