Jacqueline Jones Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War by Jacqueline Jones, is an examination of a society trying to redefine itself in the face of sweeping change. An exploration of the power structure of pre-Civil War society sets the stage for her examination of the struggle for power and relevance by the former elite following the war, and also the struggle for self-determination by African Americans in the wake of emancipation and Sherman's Field Orders No. 15.

The Georgia Historical Society will present this lecture at the Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church on Calhoun Square in downtown Savannah at 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, October 23, 2008. Free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Jacqueline Jones won the Bancroft Prize from Columbia University as well as the Brown Publication Prize of The Association Of Black Women Historians for her earlier work, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present. In her latest book, Jones has compiled the experiences of many members of Savannah society to create a unique look at the different communities of the city during the tumultuous years of the mid-nineteenth century.