America aflame : how the Civil War created a nation Cover Image

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America aflame : how the Civil War created a nation / David Goldfield.

Goldfield, David R., 1944- (Author).

Summary:

In this history, the author offers a new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom." Where past scholars have limned the war as a triumph of freedom, this author sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere. As the Second Great Awakening surged through America, political questions became matters of good and evil to be fought to the death. The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not.

Record details

ISBN: 9781596917026 (hbk.)
ISBN: 1596917024 (hbk.)
Physical Description: 632 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm.
Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
Publisher: New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2011.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (p. [591]-615) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	A nation reborn -- Crusades -- Empire -- Revolutions -- Railroaded -- Blood on the Plains -- Revival -- The boatman -- The tug comes -- Just causes -- Shiloh awakening -- Born in a day -- Blood and transcendence -- A new nation -- War is cruelty -- One nation, indivisible -- The age of reason -- Aspirations -- A golden moment -- The golden spike -- Political science -- Let it be -- Centennial.