Prestigious journal reviews book co-authored by Peter Blanck
Source: December 2011 issue of The American Historical Review
The December 2011 issue of The American Historical Review includes a book review of Race, Ethnicity, and Disability: Veterans and Benefits in Post – Civil War America, authored by BBI Chairman and University Professor Peter Blanck and Mississippi College Professor Larry Logue.
According to the review, written by Ellen Dwyer of Indiana University, “Larry M. Logue and Peter Blanck’s new book substantially advances our understanding of the health and welfare of African American soldiers during and after the Civil War” Dwyer goes on to write: “Inspired by the growing field of disability studies, Logue and Blanck use multivariate statistical methods (logistic regression and hazards analysis) to capture the complicated ways in which race and ethnicity shaped the experiences of Civil War veterans and the responses of the United States Pension Bureau to their requests for assistance.”
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Learn more about the book here.
About Race, Ethnicity, and Disability: Veterans and Benefits in Post-Civil War America
Cambridge University Press, 2010
Using data from more than 40,000 soldiers of the Union army, this book focuses on the experience of African Americans and immigrants with disabilities, investigating their decision to seek government assistance and their resulting treatment. Pension administrators treated these ex-soldiers differently from native-born whites, but the discrimination was far from seamless – biased evaluations of worthiness intensified in response to administrators’ workload and nativists’ late-nineteenth-century campaigns. This book finds a remarkable interplay of social concepts, historical context, bureaucratic expediency, and individual initiative. Examining how African Americans and immigrants weighed their circumstances in deciding when to request a pension, whether to employ a pension attorney, or if they should seek institutionalization, it contends that these veterans quietly asserted their right to benefits. Shedding new light on the long history of challenges faced by veterans with disabilities, the book underscores the persistence of these challenges in spite of the recent revolution in disability rights.
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