The U.S. Civil War : a very short introduction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The U.S. Civil War : a very short introduction
(Very short introductions, 641)
Oxford University Press, 2020
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The Civil War : a concise history
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-138) and index
Further reading: p. 139-142
"First published in hardback as The Civil War: a concise history"--T.p. verso
"First published as a Very Short Introduction, 2020"--T.p. verso
Description and Table of Contents
Description
More than one hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America's social and political landscape.
Louis P. Masur's The U.S. Civil War: A Very Short Introduction offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America's Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come.
In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." This concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Ch 1: The Origins of the Civil War
Ch 2: 1861
Ch 3: 1862
Ch 4: 1863
Ch 5: 1864
Ch6: 1865 and After the War
Epilogue
References
Further Reading
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"