The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

by Thomas Dixon, Thomas D. Clark

Overview

"The first thing to be said in discussing Thomas Dixon, Jr.'s novel The Clansman is that no person of critical judgment thinks of it as having artistic conception or literary craftsmanship." - Historian Thomas D. Clark

The year was 1865. With the close of the Civil War, there began for the South an era of even greater turmoil. In The Clansman, his controversial 1905 novel, later the basis of the motion picture The Birth of a Nation, Thomas Dixon, describes the social, political, and economic disintegration that plagued the South during Reconstruction, depicting the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the reactions of two families to racial conflict. This study in social history was alternatively praised and damned by contemporary critics.

As historian Thomas D. Clark notes in his introduction, the novel "opened wider a vein of racial hatred which was to poison further an age already in social and political upheaval. Dixon had in fact given voice in his novel to one of the most powerful latent forces in the social and political mind of the South." For modern readers, The Clansman probes the roots of the racial violence that still haunts our society.

This critical edition places the controversial novel in context with the history of the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination, and Jim Crow laws. By detailing the economic plight of the South in the late nineteenth century and Dixon's background, Clark reveals how easily prejudice took hold amongst Southern whites.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813101262
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	12/31/1970
Series:	Novel as American Social History Series
Edition description:	critical edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.75(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Thomas Dixon (1864-1946) was born in Shelby, North Carolina. He is the author of The Clansman and The Sins of the Father.

Thomas D. Clark, professor emeritus of history at the University of Kentucky, is the author of many books on the history of Kentucky and the American South.

Table of Contents

Part 1 The Assassination; Chapter 1 The Bruised Reed; Chapter 2 The Great Heart; Chapter 3 The Man of War; Chapter 4 A Clash of Giants; Chapter 5 The Battle of Love; Chapter 6 The Assassination; Chapter 7 The Frenzy of a Nation; Part 2 The Revolution; Chapter 8 The First Lady of the Land; Chapter 9 Sweethearts; Chapter 10 The Joy of Living; Chapter 11 Hidden Treasure; Chapter 12 Across the Chasm; Chapter 13 The Gauge of Battle; Chapter 14 A Woman Laughs; Chapter 15 A Dream; Chapter 16 The King Amuses Himself; Chapter 17 Tossed by the Storm; Chapter 18 The Supreme Test; Chapter 19 Triumph in Defeat; Part 3 The Reign of Terror; Chapter 20 A Fallen Slaveholder’s Mansion; Chapter 21 The Eyes of the Jungle; Chapter 22 Augustus Caesar; Chapter 23 At The Point of the Bayonet; Chapter 24 Forty Acres and a Mule; Chapter 25 A Whisper in the Crowd; Chapter 26 By the Light of a Torch; Chapter 27 The Riot in the Master’s Hall; Chapter 28 At Lover’s Leap; Chapter 29 A Night Hawk; Chapter 30 The Beat of a Sparrow’s Wing; Chapter 31 At the Dawn of Day; Part 4 The Ku Klux Klan; Chapter 32 The Hunt for the Animal; Chapter 33 The Fiery Cross; Chapter 34 The Parting of the Ways; Chapter 35 The Banner of the Dragon; Chapter 36 The Reign of the Klan; Chapter 37 The Counter Stroke; Chapter 38 The Snare of the Fowler; Chapter 39 A Ride for a Life; Chapter 40 “Vengeance Is Mine”;

Editorial Reviews

The Clansman probes the roots of the racial violence that still haunts our society.

The Lone Star Book Review

" The Clansman probes the roots of the racial violence that still haunts our society." — The Lone Star Book Review

From the Publisher

The 1905 second novel of Dixon's (1864-1946) Reconstruction trilogy was controversial when it appeared, as was the movie made from it, a decade later. Its racist interpretation of US history and society, however, reflected mainstream public opinion at the time. Noting that it was never considered good literature, Wintz (history, Texas Southern U.) abridges it be accessible to students of politics, especially racial politics in America at the turn of the century. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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