by Karen L. Cox
University of North Carolina Press
2/01/2026, paperback
SKU: 9781469695969
When it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground. Debates over their meaning have sparked legislative battles, courtroom fights, and public protests that sometimes turn destructive. These conflicts have persisted for over a century, but never with today's intensity.
In No Common Ground, historian Karen L. Cox examines the rise, preservation, and contestation of Confederate monuments. She explores what these statues meant to their builders and how movements arose to challenge them. Cox traces the forces behind symbols of white supremacy and how antimonument sentiment--suppressed during the Jim Crow era--reemerged with the civil rights movement and grew after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Monument defenders used gerrymandering and heritage laws to block removals, while civil rights activists fought to reclaim public space and history.
This second edition includes a new preface tracing developments in the monument conflict since 2020--from George Floyd's murder to the removals, legal battles, and federal actions that followed--revealing a nation still divided, with no common ground in sight.
Reviews:
"In her superb contribution to the history of the South, Cox targets the massive influence of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on Southerners in the late 1890s and beyond, especially in the area of monument building. . . . An invaluable study of all-too-frequently misplaced genealogical and regional venerations. Highly recommended for U.S., antebellum, Civil War, African American, and Southern historians and scholars, and for all readers."--Library Journal
"To many Americans, the heated debates over Confederate monuments might seem new. But Karen L. Cox, a leading historian of Confederate memory, reminds us in No Common Ground, her brief, excellent overview of Confederate monument history, that these statues have been hotly contested since their inception. Through a swift survey of news reports, speeches, pamphlets, and legislative debates, she shows that in the minds of their Southern white creators and to Black communities, these monuments 'have always been attached to the cause of slavery and white supremacy."--The New Republic
"When UNC created the Ferris and Ferris imprint (of which No Common Ground is one of the first books published), it aimed to create 'high-profile, general-interest books about the American South' and this book fits the bill perfectly. Well researched and with clear prose, the book was a pleasure to read...Illustrated with rarely seen pictures of Confederate monuments as points of social conflict, the book is an easy-to-read introduction to the battles over monuments that continue around America--and indeed the world--to this day."--Black Perspectives
About the Author:
Karen L. Cox is professor emerita of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.