The History Department is proud to announce the publication of Dr. J. Matthew Gallman’s book, Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front with the University of North Carolina Press. Dr. Gallman interrogates the meaning of citizenship and duty during this pivotal time in American history through an analysis of newspapers, fiction, and popular images. One reviewer proclaimed that Defining Duty “offers a compelling examination of how struggling northerners defined, debated and delineated loyal behavior during the four years of the American Civil War.” In addition to the publication of this important book, Dr. Gallman also contributed a blog entry on the fascinating origins of the word “shoddy” for UNC Press’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
