Sublime

Ironically, then, like places throughout the South, Harpers Ferry is a monument to the defeated. Only here the defeated are wild-eyed radical abolitionist John Brown and his companions, and not the Confederate dead.

exported the ideology of white supremacy.

Chapter

Precisely these “civilized” societies are likely to resort to savage violence in their attempts to conquer “primitive” societies.22

It was the only time in U.S. history that a sitting president led troops against his own citizens.

Eisenhower—who,

“The entire civilized world is against Iraq”—an irony, in that Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates valleys are the earliest known seat of civilization.

days after the battle found the bodies of “the Indians and white

No matter their age or station in life, Billy can’t help but regard his fellow Americans as children. They are bold and proud and certain in the way of clever children blessed with too much self-esteem, and no amount of lecturing will enlighten them as to the state of pure sin toward which war inclines. He pities them, scorns them, loves them, hate