Not Even Past ought to be a series of essays in Harper’s or The Atlantic, maybe even The Nation, three magazines that came of age during the Civil War era. Today, the Harper’s masthead says that the magazine “explores issues that drive our national conversation.” The Civil War itself emerged from the failure of our first national conversation, the debate over slavery. Marrs’s opening gambit to join this conversation is a prominent reference to the 2017 right-wing rally in Charlottesville that protested the renaming of Robert E. Lee Park as Emancipation Park and the removal of a statue of Lee. While this reference may feel a bit dated in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, it only validates the book’s trajectory. Particular, contemporary incidents (there will be more) are catalyzed by the persistent stories the book explores.
Not Even Past has gained some public notice—for example,...
University of California Press