Grady McWhiney
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Grady McWhiney (July 15 1928 – April 18 2006) was a historian of the American south and the Civil War. As historian C. David Dalton has pointed out, he was "Controversial. Unconventional. Influential. These are words easily applied to one of the South's most prominent scholars, Grady McWhiney. For over three decades his writings have been discussed and debated but never disregarded." [''Journal of Southern History. Volume: 70. Issue: 1. 2004. Page 146.]
He was born on July 15, 1928, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and served in the Marine Corps in 1945. He married in 1947. He attended Centenary College on the GI Bill, earned an MA in history from the Louisiana State University, working with Francis Butler Simkins. He received his PhD in history from Columbia University in New York, working with David Donald.
His dissertation dealt with Confederate General Braxton Bragg. McWhiney became a noted specialist on the Civil War era, as well as southern social and economic history. He coauthored Attack and Die with his doctoral student Perry Jamieson. He published Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat, in two volumes, as well as many scholarly and popular articles and reviews. He lectured frequently to both academic and popular audiences.
McWhiney and Forrest McDonald were the authors of the influential "Celtic Thesis," which holds that most southerners were of Celtic ancestry (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon), and that all Celtic groups (Scots-Irish, Scottish, Welsh and others) were descended from warlike herdsmen, in contrast to the peaceful farmers who predominated in England.
He taught around the country, at Troy State University, Milsaps College, the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, the University of British Columbia, Wayne State University, the University of Alabama, Texas Christian University, Mississippi Southern University and McMurry University. Over a 44-year career, he trained 19 history PhDs.
Grady McWhiney was deeply concerned about the future of history in the schools, explaining, “history should be accessible.” He founded the Grady McWhiney Research Foundation, located in Abilene, Texas.
He was a former director of the League of the South. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called him the intellectual grandfather of the neo-Confederate movement [link], but he left that movement in the mid 1990s.
See also
References
- Grady McWhiney. Confederate Crackers and Cavaliers. (Abilene, Tex.: McWhiney Foundation Press, c. 2002. Pp. 312. ISBN 1-893114-27-9, collected essays
External links
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