An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962.

By William Doyle. (New York and other cities: Doubleday, 2001. Pp. xii, 383. $26.00, ISBN 0-385-49969-8.)

In 1962, nearly a century after Appomattox, the University of Mississippi continued to provide sanctuary for an unvanquished Old South. With its Greek columns, antebellum architecture, admission policies accentuating racial and class exclusion, and a reputation as the incubator of the state's conservative leaders, the institution prided itself as a bastion of aristocratic privilege. Moreover, it was home to two "Miss Americas," twenty-five fraternities and sororities, and "Colonel Reb," a chivalrous mascot who inspired Confederate flag-waving spectators to shower passionate renditions of "Dixie" upon their gridiron gladiators. "Ole Miss" (ironically, a sobriquet slaves had utilized in reference to the plantation mistress) indeed symbolized, for admirers and detractors alike, a "southern" university.

Into this future kudzu-draped repository of the past stepped James Meredith, an individualist bent on realizing his lifelong dream of attending the Magnolia State's flagship university. The former Air Force sergeant was a solitary figure; at a time when civil rights organizations were mobilizing activists through freedom rides, lunch counter sit-ins, and mass demonstrations, Meredith intentionally acted alone. His actions, of course, impacted many, and historians have consequently placed them into the larger context of the black freedom struggle. At least in hindsight and civil rights annals, Meredith, the idiosyncratic loner later associated with Jesse Helms and David Duke, has become an interdependent piece in a grand mosaic.

In An American Insurrection William Doyle, a noted documentary film-maker, attempts to rescue the Meredith story from the obscurity he thinks has been imposed upon it by the conventional civil rights narrative. To illuminate what he curiously claims is a nearly invisible turning point in recent history, Doyle describes in minute detail the "Battle of Oxford," the fifteen-hour skirmish in the fall of 1962 that pitted white southern natives against the federal government and, at times, one another. After conducting hundreds of interviews; sifting through presidential papers and telephone transcriptions, FBI files, Pentagon records, and State Sovereignty Commission documents; and reading selected secondary sources, Doyle has constructed a fast-paced martial account obviously geared toward a popular audience. "What Black Hawk Down was to the American mission in Somalia," the book jacket trumpets, "An American Insurrection is destined to become to the epic struggle for civil rights."

Such an objective manifests both the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Though interesting, and at times riveting, Doyle's dramatic chronicle concerns itself less with understanding the forces that sustained social change than it does with creating a sabre-rattling setting inhabited by numerous heroes, villains, and bumbling politicians (there are enough of each to go around). Overall, it lacks the contextualization, objectivity, and analytical framework required of authoritative scholarly monographs. Ultimately a fascinating synthesis of "war" stories as told by participants, An American Insurrection unwittingly minimizes the event's complexities.

Although the University of Mississippi's painful and prolonged struggle with desegregation still awaits its definitive telling, Doyle's attention to detail and oral sources undeniably adds much to the existing literature. In addition, his is a compelling and driving saga whose commercial success should encourage professional historians to seek readers beyond academia.

MICHAEL T. BERTRAND
Oxford, Mississippi