As a part of the annual Sid Easley lectures, the history department invited Don Doyle, a former professor of history at the University of South Carolina, to give a lecture on his newest book, “The Age of Reconstruction: How Lincoln’s New Birth of Freedom Remade the World.”
Doyle grew up in San Francisco, California, eventually receiving a doctorate in history at Northwestern University, joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University in 1974. Doyle has since traveled to various countries prompted by his interest in the history of the South in a global context.
James Humphreys, professor of history, introduced Doyle at the lecture.
“We are thrilled and honored to have with us tonight Don H. Doyle, one of the county’s leading scholars on the history of the American South,” Humphreys said. “I picked up Doyle at the airport this afternoon in Nashville. We immediately started talking about Southern history. It was just like heaven.”
The Sid Easley Lectures serve as an honor to the late Sid Easley, an alumnus who once served as the Chairman of the Board of Regents. Following Easley’s death in 2016, the Sid Easley Lecture Fund was established to bring guest lecturers who offer various perspectives on historical events and relevant subjects.
Kathy Callahan, chair of the history department, said the department looks at a variety of scholars when deciding on the guest lecturer.
“It’s a really great opportunity to engage with a scholar who isn’t from Murray, doesn’t have any ties to Murray State and could bring in fresh ideas,” Callahan said.
Doyle’s lecture highlighted significant topics from his book, exploring the international impact of the Union’s victory and Lincoln’s death, and how it inspired reformations and emancipation movements across the globe.
“For over a century and a half, historians have treated the Civil War reconstruction as though the rest of the world didn’t exist and didn’t matter,” Doyle said during the lecture. “My readers view the Civil War reconstruction through the eyes of foreigners looking back at the America’s trying to make sense of what this war and its aftermath were about.”
Doyle said his newest book could be considered a continuation of “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War,” which covered a portion of history prior to 1865, where “The Age of Reconstruction” picks up.
“What my new book asks is what difference did the American Civil War make? How did it change the world?” Doyle said. “And the answer I have in my subtitle, of course, was that the meaning of Lincoln’s Prophecy was (that) the new birth of freedom remade the world.”
