Dissent has played a defining role in the history of the United States. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution established guides to governance, but it is often dissent, sometimes over many years of struggle, that has brought the principles of those writings into concrete fruition. Temple University historian Ralph Young gives us a meticulously researched and beautifully written overview of the many kinds of dissent in American Patriots: A Short History of Dissent.

Following a meaty exploration of early examples—such as the development of the colonial era’s principles of freedom of the press and the separation of church and state, and Henry David Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government”—Young focuses on the last 100 years or so. During that time, new technologies increasingly enabled dissenters to advance their causes more efficiently and to more people. Women’s rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, antiwar movements and more are highlighted in some detail.

Young discusses the difference between genuine dissent and synthetic dissent. Of the January 6 insurrection, when supporters of Donald Trump invaded the U.S. Capitol claiming that the presidential election had been stolen, he writes, “Dissenters have legitimate grievances against the dominant power structure. True dissent is based upon expressing truth and exposing injustice.” The members of the mob, he posits, were “pawns of a charismatic demagogue who were short-circuited by conspiracy theories and disinformation.” True dissenters want to bring reform from within the system—not to crush it, as terrorists and revolutionaries do, Young argues. True dissent is a deeply patriotic effort to get the country to live up to its highest ideals. In the book’s conclusion, Young quotes Dwight D. Eisenhower: “We must never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”

Dissent can be complex, whether the category is political, economic, religious, social or cultural, or an overlapping of causes. World War II is a good example of the last. As Young writes, “Although most Americans supported the ‘Good War,’ many thousands protested against the war, against the draft, and against infringements on civil liberties and civil rights.”

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.” This wide-ranging and enlightening book illustrates the crucial truth of that statement.

Historian Elizabeth R. Varon’s authoritative and fascinating biography Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South illuminates the man she calls “one of the Civil War era’s best-known—but least understood—figures.”

James Longstreet first owned enslaved people when he was just 11 years old. Influenced by his uncle, a prominent pro-slavery ideologue, he attended West Point, and soon after distinguished himself in the Mexican War. Though he would later paint a picture of his younger self as a reluctant secessionist pressured by his family, Varon points out another biographer, Jeffry Wert, revealed that Longstreet “acted with surprising haste” in embracing the cause. As a Confederate general, Longstreet “tried to preempt and to punish the many forms of Black resistance” and “worked to forestall and undermine emancipation.” His outstanding record in the Civil War led Robert E. Lee to refer to Longstreet as his “old war-horse.”

Following the Confederacy’s defeat, Longstreet and his family moved to New Orleans, where the city’s “cosmopolitan culture, entrepreneurial energy, and democratic diversity seemed fertile ground for political transformations to take root.” It was in this atmosphere that Longstreet published four public letters expressing his support for Congress’ Reconstruction Acts, changing his life forever and turning friends into political enemies. He became a leader in the state’s Republican Party, supporting Black enfranchisement and school integration. His advocacy for Black soldiers, Varon writes, was “his boldest, most radical contribution to Reconstruction.”

Longstreet’s “political journey from ardent Confederate to ardent Republican was an exceedingly unlikely one,” writes Varon. “In time, as he experienced the transformations of Reconstruction, he would come to accept fully an influential Unionist interpretation of emancipation.” Though he was celebrated as a Confederate, supporters of the Lost Cause retroactively blamed the Gettysburg defeat on Longstreet, and some blamed him for the Confederacy losing the war.

Varon relies on Longstreet’s frequent interviews with the press, his essays and his 1896 memoir published, in which, Varon says, he “succeeded . . . in refashioning himself as a prophet of sectional reconciliation between the North and South.” The transformation of his outlook was strongly influenced by Ulysses S. Grant, his close friend from when both were cadets at West Point. As newly elected president, Grant insisted on appointing Longstreet to his first political office, as surveyor of the port of New Orleans. After Grant’s death in 1885, Longstreet said the former president was the “highest type of manhood America has produced.”

This engaging narrative brings a complex figure to light. The author is, on the whole, sympathetic of the once-rebel general. “Longstreet,” writes Varon, “saw his stance on Reconstruction as an extension of his Southern identity, not a repudiation of it.” But Varon is also honest about Longstreet’s flaws and contradictions. Longstreet should enlighten many readers of American history.