Fateful lightning : a new history of the Civil War & Reconstruction
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Bibliographic Information
Fateful lightning : a new history of the Civil War & Reconstruction
Oxford University Press, c2012
- : pbk
- Other Title
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The crisis of the American Republic : a history of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era
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"The first edition of this book was published as The crisis of the American Republic: a history of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era (St. Martin's Press, 1994)"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. [537]-555) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than 600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also sparked some of the most heroic moments in American history and enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of
resurgent monarchies, that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges.
In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other surveys of the Civil War era, it extends the reader's vista to include the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of the Civil War in American literature and popular culture.
Guelzo also puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute sense of the vulnerability of their republic in a world of monarchies. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation,
the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.
Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis, Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Nation Announcing Itself
Chapter 2: The Disillusion of Compromise
Chapter 3: From Debate to Civil War
Chapter 4: To War Upon Slavery: The East and Emancipation, 1861-1862
Chapter 5: Elusive Victories: East and West, 1862-1863
Chapter 6: The Soldier's Tale
Chapter 7: The Manufacture of War
Chapter 8: Year That Trembled: East and West, 1863
Chapter 9: World Turned Upside Down
Chapter 10: Stalemate and Triumph
Chapter 11: A Dim Shore Ahead
Epilogue
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"