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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDouble Diaspora will enrich the multiple fields it participates in—medieval and romance studies, Sephardic history, Hebrew literature, and many more. * AJS Review *Wacks makes a crucial first foray toward a more nuanced critical understanding of the literary world of Spanish Jewry. His attempts to renegotiate the boundaries of the canon and extend Iberian literature to include non-Castilian and even non-Iberian texts raise profound questions about how Spanish literature should be studied and taught. * Hispania *Wacks's book uncovers the experience and enriches the academic field of Hebrew and Romance literary studies by opening up a whole new set of questions and by suggesting new approaches to the study of Jewish cultural heritage, which, as Wacks makes clear, should always take into account the surrounding non-Jewish intellectual context. * La coronica *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1. Diaspora Studies for Sephardic Culture 2. Allegory and Romance in Diaspora: Jacob ben Elazar's Book of Tales 3. Poetry in Diaspora: From al-Andalus to Provence and back to Castile 4. The Anxiety of Vernacularization: Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Ardutiel de Carrión's Proverbios morales and Debate between the Pen and the Scissors 5. Diaspora as Tragicomedy: Vidal Benvenist's Efer and Dina 6. Empire and Diaspora: Solomon ibn Verga's Shevet Yehudah and Joseph Karo's Magid Meisharim7. Reading Amadís in Constantinople: Spanish Fiction in the Key of DiasporaConclusion NotesWorks Cited Index

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Book Synopsis1) Civil War destinations are popular tourist sites throughout Kentucky. 2) This great guidebook goes beyond the battlefields that are typically featured to fill out sites related to Civil War presidents and monuments to help readers plan a fun and informative trip back in time. 3) Authors are promotion pros and will set up events and local publicity.Trade ReviewReading Presidents, Battles, and Must-See Civil War Destinations should be a useful initial step for those planning their first family trip through Kentucky's Civil War backroads. * Civil War Books and Authors *Table of ContentsPart I: The PresidentsA Road Trip to Hodgenville to Visit the LincolnsSidebar: Presidents at the Lincoln BirthplaceOther Monuments to Abe in KentuckyA Road Trip to Lexington to Visit the ToddsA Road Trip to Fairview, Birthplace of the Other First PresidentPart II: The BattlesRules for ReenactmentsA Road Trip to Western Kentucky's BattlefieldsThe Battle of ColumbusThe Battle of Sacramento-Green RiverThe Battle of MunfordvilleA Road Trip to Eastern Kentucky's BattlefieldsThe Battles of Camp Wildcat and Mill SpringsThe Big Sandy Expedition and the Battle Ivy MountainSidebar: "Bull" NelsonThe Battle of Middle CreekA Road Trip to Perryville, The Largest Civil War Battle in KentuckySidebarJohn Hunt Morgan's Road Trip (By Horse)SidebarPart III: Kentucky War StoriesKentucky's Confederate CapitalKentucky's Civil War GovernorsSimon Bolivar BucknerA Road Trip to the Other Fort BoonesboroAfrican American Soldiers in Kentucky During the WarThe Words of WarWilliam Wells BrownA 'True American'

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Book Synopsis1) Civil War destinations are popular tourist sites throughout Kentucky. 2) This great guidebook goes beyond the battlefields that are typically featured to fill out sites related to Civil War presidents and monuments to help readers plan a fun and informative trip back in time. 3) Authors are promotion pros and will set up events and local publicity.Trade ReviewReading Presidents, Battles, and Must-See Civil War Destinations should be a useful initial step for those planning their first family trip through Kentucky's Civil War backroads. * Civil War Books and Authors *Table of ContentsPart I: The PresidentsA Road Trip to Hodgenville to Visit the LincolnsSidebar: Presidents at the Lincoln BirthplaceOther Monuments to Abe in KentuckyA Road Trip to Lexington to Visit the ToddsA Road Trip to Fairview, Birthplace of the Other First PresidentPart II: The BattlesRules for ReenactmentsA Road Trip to Western Kentucky's BattlefieldsThe Battle of ColumbusThe Battle of Sacramento-Green RiverThe Battle of MunfordvilleA Road Trip to Eastern Kentucky's BattlefieldsThe Battles of Camp Wildcat and Mill SpringsThe Big Sandy Expedition and the Battle Ivy MountainSidebar: "Bull" NelsonThe Battle of Middle CreekA Road Trip to Perryville, The Largest Civil War Battle in KentuckySidebarJohn Hunt Morgan's Road Trip (By Horse)SidebarPart III: Kentucky War StoriesKentucky's Confederate CapitalKentucky's Civil War GovernorsSimon Bolivar BucknerA Road Trip to the Other Fort BoonesboroAfrican American Soldiers in Kentucky During the WarThe Words of WarWilliam Wells BrownA 'True American'

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Book SynopsisIn this never before published diary, 29-year-old surgeon James Fulton transports readers into the harsh and deadly conditions of the Civil War, as he struggles to save the lives of the wounded and diseased under his care.Trade Review"This is not only a fascinating firsthand look at the experiences of a Civil War Surgeon who participated in some of the most notable actions of the war, it is also a deep and unique meditation on the meaning of Dr. Fulton's work and the broader medical, military, and cultural significance of his Civil War experience."—Daryl Black, Executive Director of Seminary Ridge Museum"Civil War Medicine tells the story of Assistant Surgeon James Fulton of the 143rd Penn. Inf. Well written and detailed, this book is a must for any Civil War medical enthusiast."—Peter J. D'Onofrio, President of the Society of Civil War Surgeons, Inc."In Civil War Medicine: A Surgeon's Diary, Robert D. Hicks has produced an imminently useful book that includes the transcribed and annotated diary of Dr. James Fulton, who served as assistant surgeon with the Pennsylvania's Bucktail Brigade; an introduction that clearly and concisely situates Fulton, who hailed from Chester County, Pennsylvania, in his social, political, and medical milieu; and a collection of essays by prominent experts in the field who find in the diary all sorts of opportunities to look at Civil War through Fulton's eyes—and his hands."—Judith Giesberg, author of Sex and the Civil War"This book is an incredible resource for anyone interested in the human experience of the Civil War—as recorded by a medical professional tasked with saving lives in America's bloodiest conflict. Dr. Fulton's diary and the essays by preeminent experts in the field of Civil War Medicine reveal the story of the birth of our modern health care system. Thankfully this diary landed in the able hands of Robert D. Hicks, an equally great storyteller, scholar, and historian."—David Price, Executive Director of the National Museum of Civil War MedicineTable of ContentsAcknowledgementIntroduction: Becoming a DoctorPart IChapter 1: To Virginia, Measles and Typhoid (Diary, August 18, 1862 to February 19, 1863)Chapter 2: Chancellorsville and "a Spiteful Morose Scamp" (Diary, February 22, 1863 to June 28, 1863)Chapter 3: Searching for Flour at Gettysburg (Diary, June 29, 1863 to July 4, 1863)Chapter 4: Return to Virginia and Christmas with Secesh (Diary, July 5, 1863 to December 25, 1863)Chapter 5: "To bring man in communion with his God" (Diary, December 26, 1863 to January 29, 1864)Chapter 6: Dr. Fulton after 1864Chapter 7: CommentaryPart IIChapter 8: "Examined at the University of Pennsylvania": Dr. Fulton, his Professional Milieu, and Military Medicine 1862-64, by Shauna DevineChapter 9: "We Got Up and Began to Pack our Medicines": What Dr. Fulton Prescribed, by Guy R. Hasegawa Chapter 10: "We Soon Concluded to Operate": Dr. Fulton's Tools and Methods, by James M. EdmonsonChapter 11: "The Christian Commission also Brought in a Wagon Today": Dr. Fulton, Voluntary Relief Associations, and Women in Hospitals, by Barbra Mann WallChapter 12: "We Made Up Soup as Fast as Possible": Nutrition and the 19th Century Male Body, by Margaret HumphreysChapter 13: "Such is the Character of Many Men": Dr. Fulton's Politics and the Moral and Political Consciousness of Soldiers, by Randall M. MillerAppendicesBibliography ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisWith careful details and vivid descriptions, Mississippi Civil War Monuments offers a comprehensive guide to the memorials that make up Mississippi's physical and historical landscape.Trade Review"Against the fraught backdrop of debate over Civil War statues, Timothy Sedore guides us deftly through 800 Union and Confederate monuments in Mississippi with judicious precision and Lincolnian magnanimity. Now more than ever, we are fortunate to have this level-headed, clear-eyed book. "—Stephen Cushman, Robert E. Taylor Professor of English, University of Virginia"Mississippi's 800 Civil War-related monuments far exceed in number those in any other state—including more commemorating the Union than anywhere but Pennsylvania.. Timothy S. Sedore's exceptionally valuable survey should find an appreciate readership at a time when Americans are debating how best to deal with statues and other monuments that reflect the war's, and history's, hard edges."—Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Union War"The Magnolia State saw some of the most significant fighting of the Civil War, and it was in Mississippi that arguably the most important campaign of the conflict took place, now fittingly commemorated in the Vicksburg National Military Park. Timothy S. Sedore's Mississippi Civil War Monuments: An Illustrated Field Guide provides a wonderful and insightful glimpse into the state's Civil War history while taking the reader on a tour of the monuments that commemorate both the fighting and the men who did the fighting. "—Timothy B. Smith, author of Shiloh: Conquer or Perish, Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg, and The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson's Epic 1863 Civil War Raid Through Mississippi."Anyone visiting Mississippi's Civil War landscape would be well served to carry a copy of Sedore's guide with them. From Vicksburg to Oxford, readers will find a rich examination of how and why Confederate and Union monuments sprang up across the state."—Caroline E. Janney, Director, John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, University of VirginiaTable of ContentsList of MapsPrefaceIntroduction1. Vicksburg National Military Park2. The Vicksburg National Monument Park Landscape3. Northern MississippiAlcorn CountyTishomingo CountyTippah CountyPrentiss County Lee CountyPontotoc CountyDeSoto CountyLafayette CountyYalobusha CountyTallahatchie CountyChickasaw CountyMonroe CountyGrenada CountyBolivar CountyWashington CountyLeflore CountyCarrol CountyMontgomery CountyOktibbeha CountyClay CountyLowndes County4. Central MississippiHumphreys CountyHolmes CountyAttala CountyWinston CountyNoxubee CountyYazoo CountyMadison CountyNeshoba CountyKemper CountyLauderdale CountyRankin CountyHinds County5. Southern MississippiAdams CountyJefferson CountyClaiborne CountyCopiah CountyLincoln CountyAmite CountyJones CountyJasper County Clarke CountyWayne CountyForrest CountyPearl River CountyGeorge CountyHarrison CountySelected Sources

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Book SynopsisChronicles the story of Henry F. Young, an officer in the famed Iron Brigade, as told through 155 letters home. His insights, often poignant and powerful, enable readers to witness the Civil War as he did.Trade ReviewYoung’s rich lode of testimony illuminates Civil War military service. His letters reveal the centrality of the Union to northern motivation, the complex relationship between U.S. soldiers and emancipation, and the powerful ties between armies and the home front."" - Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Union War""Among the many collections of Civil War correspondence, these letters stand out for their honesty about the hard realities of war that tested one's faith and fealty to ‘the cause,' and the maturing ideas about what it meant to be a man. Dear Delia will repay many readings for anyone wanting to know how and why the war mattered to those who fought it."" - Randall M. Miller, co-author of The Northern Home Front during the Civil War""Young’s letters offer some of the most stunningly honest opinions and detailed descriptions ever produced by a Union soldier. The letters are expertly presented and explained by the editors, offering unusually rich insights into the most important dimensions of the Civil War."" - T. Michael Parrish, Baylor University""This revealing collection of letters is one of the best windows one will ever find into the everyday reality and the horror of the Civil War. Larson and Smith illuminate this remarkable story; the letters themselves take us deep into Young's values, honesty, racial views, contempt for slackers and civilians, and almost unfathomable determination to stay to the end to save the Union."" - David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

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Book SynopsisTells the complex story of the debate and legal battle over federal regulation of the slave trade. This book explores a range of constitutional, social, and political issues that absorbed antebellum America. It revises accepted interpretations of various historical figures, including James Madison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln.Trade Review“An important book—one that will take a significant place in the scholarly literature on the antislavery movement and the coming of the Civil War.”—James M. McPherson, Princeton University -- James M. McPherson“Slavery and the Commerce Power fills a major crack in interpretive arguments over Lincoln, the nature of the Constitution, the slave trade, and the coming of the Civil War. This book will be a standard in each of these areas, and no one interested in any of them can ignore Lightner’s interpretations.”—Kermit Hall, president, State University of New York at Albany -- Kermit Hall

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Book SynopsisA sweeping story of how Northerners, Southerners, and Westerners together created modern America in the years from Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt.Trade ReviewIncluded in the Washington Post Book World's Holiday Guide (2007)Selected as a 2008 AAUP University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries.“Richardson tells a different story about the United States as a whole during a reconceptualized period of ‘Reconstruction’ after the Civil War.”—Sheldon Hackney, University of Pennsylvania “Highly original, deeply researched, and important, West from Appomattox has the added advantage of being extremely well written: Heather Cox Richardson’s prose is clear, accessible, and compelling.”—Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago"With a marvelous sense of scope, narrative lucidity, and thorough research, Heather Richardson makes the convincing case that Americans still live in the world that Reconstruction built—or left partly unbuilt. A skilled historian of political economy, Richardson has here written a new and important synthesis of late-nineteenth-century American society enmeshed in a great struggle to determine just what kind of country the Civil War had wrought. This book is deeply informed and a good read; it spurs our effort to help Americans realize that their reading must not stop with Appomattox."—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory"A truly fresh reconsideration—and a smart and wonderfully written one—of Reconstruction. Richardson pulls back to a genuinely national perspective, and in doing so gives us a strikingly original view of this vitally important time in the national story."—Elliott West, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Book SynopsisThis eye-opening study of Civil War photography traces the introduction of the camera into the battlefield and shows its influence on history and our responses to warTrade Review"The American Civil War, for the purposes of this riveting study, begins just before the 1860 presidential election, which swept Abraham Lincoln to power, and ends with the aftermath of his assassination in 1865.Warfare itself . . . makes up only a part of this book. There is striking and unexpected imagery . . . The final pictures are as momentous as any. Gardner’s sequence showing the execution of the Lincoln assassins . . . still have in our desensitised times the power to shock. For a book of this scope and depth, academic, meticulously researched and a corrective to much that has gone before, the text reads throughout like a thriller."—Robin Muir, World of Interiors

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Book SynopsisShortly after the third edition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1860, Walt Whitman seemed to drop off the literary map, only to emerge two and a half years later. This work reconstructs the forgotten years of Whitman through letters and manuscripts, as well as mapping his associations through newspapers and magazines in which he published.Trade Review"Genoways' account fills in a major gap in previous biographies of Whitman and rebuts the canard that Whitman was unaffected by the war and the run-up to it." -- Jay Strafford Richmond Times-Dispatch "A wonderful book." -- Barbara Rich Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va) "Paints a vivid picture of an evolving America reacting to an internal conflict that virtually no one was prepared to address." Foreword "This compelling narrative will change the interpretation of Whitman and this time period... Highly recommended." Choice "Fascinating... Interesting and original information ... [is] uncovered through Genoways' original research." -- Helene Littmann Journal Of Historical BiographyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Quicksand Years Chapter 1 The Red-Hot Fellows of Those Times Chapter 2 The Representative Man of the North Chapter 3 The Volcanic Upheaval of the Nation Chapter 4 War-Suggesting Trumpets, I Heard You Chapter 5 Dead and Divine, and Brother of All Conclusion List of Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOn the night of the 1876 presidential election, a gang of counterfeiters attempted to steal the entombed embalmed body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. This rousing story of hapless con men, intrepid federal agents, and ordinary Springfield citizens offers an unusual glimpse into late-nineteenth-century America.Trade ReviewWith charm and authority, Thomas Craughwell offers an illuminating portrait of nineteenth-century America as he writes of the origins of the Secret Service, counterfeiting in America, the rambunctious growth of Chicago, and the assassination of the beloved president. At the heart of this book is the attempt to steal Old Abe's bones, a surprising story of ludicrous crooks, determined government agents, and loyal guardians devoted to the memory of their native son. -- R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., founder and editor-in-chief, American SpectatorThomas Craughwell has written a definitive and fascinating book about the hapless gang of counterfeiters who attempted to snatch Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom. This is history writing at its best. -- Wayne C. Temple, author of Abraham Lincoln: From Skeptic to ProphetWhile the field of Lincoln studies appears to have been exhaustively mined, Thomas Craughwell has found a gold nugget in the bizarre story of Stealing Lincoln's Body. In a well-researched and beautifully written book, he takes readers through the intriguing Irish underworld of counterfeiting that led to the plot to hold Lincoln's body for ransom. -- Edward Steers, Jr., author of Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham LincolnThomas Craughwell offers the first full-length account of the aborted attempt to steal the body of the nation's icon. Ian Fleming could not have done better than this fast-paced, well-written thriller. The story demonstrates yet again how good intelligence and police work can be so effective in preventing a national catastrophe. -- Frank J. Williams, Chief Justice, Rhode Island Supreme Court, and chairman of The Lincoln ForumPropelled by its true-crime format, Craughwell's history of Lincoln's several reburials and their strange-but-true details is irresistible. -- Gilbert Taylor * Booklist *Craughwell provides an intriguing glimpse at a macabre but interesting footnote to the story of Abraham Lincoln: the tale of how, on election night of 1876, several Chicago counterfeiters attempted to abduct and hold for ransom the 16th president's corpse...In telling this story, Craughwell also provides something of a biography of Lincoln's cadaver, chronicling its long voyage to final rest...Craughwell offers an entertaining account of one of the stranger incidents in American history. * Publishers Weekly *Thomas J. Craughwell has given us a richly detailed, highly entertaining, and broad slice of our history. -- John Corry * American Spectator *Stealing Lincoln's Body is worth reading for its account of the president's funeral cortege alone...[A] quirky, diverting book. -- Philip Hoare * Sunday Telegraph *[A] spirited narrative...Craughwell brings off the entire enterprise by making readers feel, hear and smell the atmosphere of the fetid Chicago taverns where the crooks hatched their demonic plot--not to mention the creepy interior of the shoddy Lincoln tomb, crumbling all around the family corpses as an aging guard of honor struggles both to conceal Lincoln's body in the dank cellar and to rescue the cheaply made temple for posterity...Summoning the raw spirit of crime novels and horror stories, as well as the forensic detail of a coroner's inquest, Thomas J. Craughwell has turned the eerie final chapter of the Lincoln story into a guilty pleasure. -- Harold Holzer * Washington Post Book World *Thomas J. Craughwell has rescued this bizarre episode from the dustbin of history...It does more than simply retell a forgotten story; it sheds new light on the incident, thanks to the long-neglected original handwritten reports of Patrick Tyrrell, the Secret Service agent who handled the case...Thomas Craughwell tells the story in a work that is sometimes morbid and creepy, but never less than fascinating. -- Eric Fettmann * New York Post *Stealing Lincoln's Body tracks an unlikely series of events, reminiscent of a silent, black-and-white, cops-and-robbers movie, with passion and erudition. -- John McBratney * Irish Times *The plot that gives Stealing Lincoln's Body its title, hatched by a crew of hapless Irish publicans and counterfeiters in Chicago, unfolds with equal doses of Martin Scorsese and the Three Stooges, the fecklessness of the robbers nearly trumped by that of the cops, on election night 1876, more than a decade after the President's assassination...It is a marvelous look into Gilded Age America and the wellsprings of many of our modern vexations. Immigrant and urban culture, robber barons and financial hoodlums, the bread-and-circuses numbing of the electorate, political scandal and presidential intrigues, the war between the ridiculous and the sublime that seems to infect our nations are all subtexts to this readable book. -- Thomas Lynch * The Times *A fascinating [tale] that is well told. -- James Srodes * Washington Times *Stealing Lincoln's Body is a fascinating thriller, and it provides a macabre footnote to American history, but the real strength lies in the way the context--the dynamic but turbulent society of America in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War--is so skillfully described. -- A. W. Purdue * Times Higher Education Supplement *Thomas Craughwell's Stealing Lincoln's Body abounds with information about the amazingly goof-ball plot and about such things as the transformation of the Secret Service into being the presidential body guard. * Frontpage Online *There is no end of fascinating context and detail in this engrossing, often zany, yet poignant tale. -- Michael Kammen * Chicago Tribune *Craughwell brings together counterfeiters, lawyers, corpse-stealers, Lincoln’s Guard of Honor, and Abraham Lincoln himself in this intriguing novel that brings to light a little-known historical incident. -- Kathy Ward * Juneauempire.com *This is a terrific read. -- Owen Richardson * The Age *By turns macabre and gruesome, dumbfounding and farcical, the extraordinary true story of the Chicago gang who attempted to kidnap Lincoln's corpse is a fascinating episode in 19th-century crime. Craughwell constructs a sweeping picture of the characters from every walk of life who were embroiled in this bizarre "horrible history." -- Richard Hand * Times Higher Education *Table of Contents* Prologue: "Lay My Remains in Some Quiet Place" * The World of the Counter feiters * Big Jim's Kennally's Big Idea * The Boss Body Snatchers of Chicago *"The Devils Are Up Here" * The Body in the Basement *"The Tools of Smarter Men" * The Lincoln Guard of Honor * A Pullman-Style Burial * Epilogue: Safe and Secure at Last * Notes * Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAbolitionists have been painted in extremes—vilified as reckless zealots who provoked the bloodletting of the Civil War, or praised as daring reformers who hastened the end of slavery. Delbanco sees them as the embodiment of a driving force in American history: the recurrent impulse of an adamant minority to rid the world of outrageous evil.Trade ReviewA brilliant, risky, provocative account of the changing historical reputation of abolitionists in America. Delbanco offers a timely take on just why this prototypical American reform movement never goes away as a template, as a useable past, as a story that can be appropriated by all ends of the political spectrum. -- David Blight, author of American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights EraWith his characteristic eloquence, Andrew Delbanco provides an interpretation of abolitionism, in history and literature, which challenges the received wisdom--and his four critics are up to the challenge. This splendid book demonstrates that the most successful radical movement in American history still retains its power to provoke and enlighten. -- Michael Kazin, author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a NationThe lucidity of the prose and the relevance of the topic to today's cultural divides may attract broader audiences. -- Brendan Driscoll * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisConsigned to illiteracy, American slaves left little record of their thoughts and feelings—or so we have believed. But a few learned to use pen and paper to make sense of their experiences, despite prohibitions. These authors’ perspectives rewrite the history of emancipation and force us to rethink the relationship between literacy and freedom.Trade ReviewThrough a series of bold, imaginative and insightful case studies, Christopher Hager uncovers the intellectual world of U.S. slavery and charts the hopes, expectations and fears of enslaved writers… By understanding emancipation as a slow process rather than a rapid transformation, Word by Word shows how literacy was an incomplete and sometimes flawed instrument of black self-determination. The idea of emancipation as an unfinished revolution is not new, nor is the attention to subterranean networks of enslaved information and exchange particularly novel in slavery studies. By rendering legible and audible the writings of the literate minority, however, Hager reveals the desperate and creative measures taken by former slaves to assert their communal and individual voices. Most of course continued unlettered, but the striking improvement in black literacy during the two decades after emancipation (from 10 to 30 per cent) is testimony to the enduring importance attached to the written word and the empowering potential of African-American writing. -- Richard Follett * Times Higher Education *Christopher Hager does a fascinating job of sifting through these letters [written by slaves], fleshing out as much as possible the stories of their authors, and casting it all as black America’s first attempts at forging a voice in this strange land, in Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing. -- Mark Reynolds * PopMatters *While Frederick Douglass invigorated abolitionists with his eloquent prose, many of his contemporaries, still enslaved or recently freed, scrawled barely legible letters to friends and family sold to distant masters. In this revelatory hybrid of history and textual analysis, Hager argues that the act of writing—often in defiance of states’ antiliteracy laws—was an exceedingly potent form of self-empowerment for these oppressed men and women, never mind their poor spelling and unorthodox methods (one potter carved poetry into his work, another ‘composed at the handle of the plough’ and kept the lines memorized till he learned to write). Primary documents, intensely scrutinized, reveal powerful emotions and common hardships, bear witness to racial struggles across the country, and provide unalloyed insight into the stark yet hopeful reality after the Emancipation Proclamation. Particularly fascinating is the evolution of writing as a form of power: a former slave protests, via letter, to a Union general about Union soldiers attacking his neighbor’s wife, while another journals his integration into the U.S. Navy with perfunctory but increasingly assured entries. This thoughtful examination of the artifacts of a too-long-silenced population is made all the more eloquent by accompanying facsimiles of the arduously penned missives. * Publishers Weekly *Hager provides an informed and informative view of writings produced by formerly enslaved African Americans, often overlooked as an illiterate group. Hager reminds readers to attend to those texts that have the power to give scholars a broader perspective of particular moments… By paying attention to these authors, Hager aims to develop new models for the interpretation of historical sources and give voice to both the unknown and the underappreciated. -- T. T. Green * Choice *[An] always engaging account of how the path to freedom was paved, in part, with written words. * Kirkus Reviews *Hager seeks to craft an intellectual history of a people too often dismissed as illiterate and lacking a culture of letters. His focus is not on stars who are well known from fugitive slave narratives, but on a handful of more or less literate blacks whose previously unpublished letters provide pieces of a complex and rich narrative of liberation. Hager discusses the mental process of writing, exploring the inner lives, secrecy, and subversion shown in black initiatives to learn how to write and how to use writing to end enslavement and to embrace emancipation. -- Thomas J. Davis * Library Journal *From its first pages, where a stumbling black writer in Civil War New Orleans picks up the U.S. Constitution, Word by Word focuses on the initial tremors of freedom for ordinary people amid wartime turmoil and the process of emancipation. This is original work of the highest order. -- Kathleen Diffley, editor of To Live and Die: Collected Stories of the Civil War, 1861–1876Hager brilliantly imagines scenes of writing among freed people in the decades immediately following emancipation, showing how former slaves turned to writing as a way of taking control of their world. Word by Word is a major and revelatory act of historical recovery done with imaginative sympathy and critical verve. -- Robert S. Levine, author of Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary NationalismA penetrating and revealing portrait of people in the process of defining freedom, Word by Word is a stirring, important work that reshapes our understanding of slavery and emancipation. -- Louis P. Masur, author of Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union

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Book SynopsisThe Civil War thrust millions of men and women—rich and poor, soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free—onto the roads of the South. During four years of war, Southerners lived on the move. In the hands of Sternhell, movement becomes a radically new means to perceive the full trajectory of the Confederacy’s rise, struggle, and ultimate defeat.Trade ReviewThe author’s incisive analysis leads to a number of fresh and fascinating ways to understand the history of the Civil War and its discontents… Routes of War is a grand achievement because it raises…important questions that have not been examined in the many thousands of books and articles published on the Civil War. Sternhell deserves accolades not only for this, but also for demonstrating quite efficaciously how motion constitutes a fundamental aspect of war in general. The most brilliant aspect of the book is her willingness to analyze motion both as a physical act and as a symbol of meaning. -- Jim Downs * American Historical Review *It’s not easy to say something fresh about the American Civil War; truly pioneering studies are few and far between. But Sternhell provides a decidedly new vantage point from which to view the war and to understand what it meant to Southerners—soldiers, slaves, and civilians. -- James L. Roark * Civil War Book Review *Sternhell writes beautifully and convincingly, arguing that the road can be a place of liberty, of opportunity—but also of failure and fear. -- Megan Kate Nelson * Civil War Monitor *

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Book SynopsisGallagher argues that we should not ask why the Confederacy collapsed so soon but rather how it lasted so long. He examines the Confederate experience through the actions and words of the people who lived it to show how the home front responded to the war, endured its hardships, and assembled armies that fought with great spirit and determination.Trade Review[Gallagher's] perceptive and engaging new book maintains that historians have got off track in recent years by attributing Confederate defeat to weakness on the home front rather than to performance on the battlefield. War-weariness, lack of will and ambivalence toward the cause of independence, they say, doomed the South… Gallagher addresses the right issues, asks probing questions and suggests intriguing alternatives. -- Daniel E. Sutherland * New York Times Book Review *Gallagher's work, a perceptive, well-written, and strongly argued series of essays concerning Confederate morale, nationalism, and military strategy, raises serious questions about the prevalent interpretation of why the South lost the Civil War. * Virginia Quarterly Review *The Confederate War is a significant and thought-provoking addition to the current body of Civil War literature. Gallagher has returned the focus of the war to the theater in which it was decided—military operations. In doing do, he demonstrates the enormous human, financial and material investment that white Southerners put into the struggle for independence. Solidly researched and sharply argued, The Confederate War cannot easily be dismissed by the 'internal causes' historians. Consequently, it is likely to rekindle debate among both academics and popularizers, which is all to the good, particularly in the current stifling climate of political. -- Richard F. Welch * America's Civil War *One of the most attractive and ennobling portrayals of the white Confederacy in recent memory. The lavish illustrations (numbering a full forty) and coffee-table 'feel' assures that this beautifully produced and competitively priced volume will have a wide readership outside of the historical profession. Gallagher's own swift prose, clear argument, and richly documented account of white southerners at war can only bolster sales further… It is also safe to say that it will have a major impact on how historians will hereafter frame research on the slaveholding South's suicidal effort to establish its independence… In a growing corpus of work on the wartime South, Gallagher has explored the interactions of war and society and given new legitimacy to a field of military history that will always need to be a part of any general understanding of the 1860s. This work has achieved a substantial measure of authority. -- Robert E. Bonner * Reviews in American History *Everyone involved in the continuing debate over the factors behind the South's defeat must read Gallagher's book, and anyone wanting a helpful introduction to it should as well. -- Gaines M. Foster * Louisiana History *An important book… The Confederate War is certain to cause controversy. For Gallagher dares to suggest that, despite, 'moral disapprobation' prevalent in many histories about the conflict over the past half-century, the stark fact remains that 'a majority of white southerners steadfastly supported their nascent republic, and that Confederate arms more than once almost persuaded the North that the price of subduing the rebellious states would be too high'… Using published evidence from Confederate diarists, soldiers, statesmen, and newspapers—evidence which by omission or intent seldom seems to find its way into recent Civil War histories—Gallagher makes a compelling case for Confederate unity. The Confederacy did not fall to pieces after Gettysburg; a 'mass of testimony' suggests that Southerners thought the war winnable until virtually the end… Thorough reassessments of the Confederacy and of the interpretations of it have long been overdue, and Gary W. Gallagher succeeds in his initial attempt to rebalance historical portrayals of the Civil War South. -- B. Anthony Gannon * Register of the Kentucky Historical Society *The Confederate War is an impressive volume. The arguments which Gallagher employs to support his central thesis are well constructed and quite persuasive. Gallagher also relies on a wide array of Confederate voices from the past to substantiate his case and this makes for an interesting study. Moreover, Gallagher's extensive review of the literature is incisive and most informative. The Confederate War should provide good reading for all students of Confederate nationalism and will generate lively debate among historians of the American Civil War for years to come. -- Bruce Cauthen * Nation and Nationalism *Gallagher's book challenges the non-military historians to come out from behind the barricades once again. -- Russell Duncan * American Studies in Europe *The author makes a fine case for a new look at an old argument. * Library Journal *Gallagher's effort will have serious students rejoicing in its persuasive argumentation for believing that battles and armies who indeed have some bearing on the outcomes of war. * Booklist *The best interpretive study of the Civil War, or at least of the Confederacy, to have appeared in a good many years. Gallagher has an almost unparalleled command of sources, both primary and secondary. His sound common sense, incisive analysis, and forceful and lucid literary style have produced a superb book. -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of FreedomThe Confederate War is vintage Gary Gallagher. Drawing on vast research, careful reasoning, and a perceptive understanding of the use of evidence, Gallagher deftly slays some of the Civil War's most lasting interpretations. It is one of the best books on the Confederacy in this decade and is a must read for anyone interested in the Civil War. -- Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White OfficersIn this bold, high spirited, well argued—and indispensable—book, Gary Gallagher does justice to the extraordinary courage and tenacity with which the white people of the South fought to establish their claims to national self-determination. And in so doing, he respectfully refutes prevalent but wrong-headed judgments. -- Eugene Genovese, author of The Southern TraditionStarting with meticulous research and proceeding with careful analysis, Gallagher presents a convincing argument that Confederate fortunes collapsed primarily from military defeats rather than an internal loss of will. This is must reading for anyone seeking a basic explanation of the causes and outcome of the Civil War. -- James I. Robertson, Jr., author of Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDowns persuasively argues that a long and persistent ‘occupation’ occurred for at least three years, and perhaps as long as six years, after the end of actual hostilities in spring, 1865. Downs also demonstrates that, although a massive demobilization of Union troops occurred in 1865–66, the United States Army has been far too neglected as a player—a force—in the history of Reconstruction… Downs wants his work to speak to the present, and indeed it should. -- David W. Blight * The Atlantic *[Downs] makes a persuasive…case that virtually none of the achievements of Reconstruction—there were more than is generally supposed—could have taken place without the use or at least the threat of military force. He challenges the view that defeated Confederates in 1865 were ready to acquiesce in whatever reorganization the federal government imposed on them, including the bestowal of civil rights on blacks… Downs rightly regards the appalling white-on-black violence of the late 1860s and early 1870s as systemic terrorism… In Downs’s telling, Reconstruction was also one of the finest hours of the U.S. Army. -- Fergus M. Bordewich * Wall Street Journal *In After Appomattox, Downs makes the case that the final end to slavery, and the establishment of basic civil and voting rights for all Americans, was ‘born in the face of bayonets.’ Put simply, the military occupation created democracy as we know it. Downs’ book couldn’t come at a more opportune time, as American forces once again face the difficult question of how long, and to what ends, an occupying army must stay in conquered territory. After more than a decade of fighting abroad, we may be too war-weary to see that military occupations are sometimes a good, even necessary thing… The brilliance of Downs’ argument is that he steals the central complaint of the apologists, yet reverses the conclusion: The federal government was overzealous—and that was a good thing. Congress had to impose martial law in order for blacks to gain basic freedoms. If military officers sometimes vacated racist local laws, if they removed ruthless sheriffs and judges, if they tried white supremacists in unfair military tribunals—all of which they did—they did so for necessary ends. Equality would come to the South no other way… Downs has produced a remarkable, necessary book. -- Eric Herschthal * Slate *In a striking new book, After Appomattox, historian Gregory Downs chronicles the years of military occupation that followed Lee’s surrender to Grant in 1865—a military occupation that was indispensable to the uprooting of slavery and the political empowerment of freed slaves. In the face of Southern white supremacist hostility, it was only the continuing presence of federal troops in the South that could break up remaining pockets of rebellion, establish the right of blacks to vote and seek election, void discriminatory laws, and unilaterally remove disloyal or racist sheriffs and judges from office. -- Jeff Jacoby * Boston Globe *Downs resets our sights on the military occupation that did occur, and he argues for its centrality in helping to fashion whatever gains African-Americans managed to achieve. In talking about military occupation, numbers matter, and his research has fixed them with a precision previously lacking… After Appomattox is a timely, important book that casts new light on the meaning of occupation during Reconstruction, and raises challenging questions about the relationship between military power and civil rights in today’s climate of never-e​nding war. -- Louis P. Masur * Chronicle of Higher Education *Downs has written an important book challenging assumptions about the post–Civil War era and the ways in which historians define ‘wartime’ and ‘peacetime.’ He contends that Lee’s surrender at Appomattox did not bring peace, but rather a second phase of war—an insurgency and war of occupation that did not ‘end’ until 1871. Downs problematizes the idea of ‘reconstruction.’ Whatever accomplishments came in that era—civil rights, a national definition of citizenship—came as a result of military force rather than deliberative politics. Challenging scholars who argue that too few Union troops for a meaningful occupation remained in the postwar South, Downs demonstrates through impressive research that there was actually a significant military presence, both numerically and geographically. But even this presence had its limits, and outside the pale, terrorists and violence plagued the South. By framing the period as an occupation and insurgency, the author has done much to reveal the violent, contested, and contingent nature of the post–Civil War US. Required reading for scholars of the Civil War era. -- K. M. Gannon * Choice *Downs examines Reconstruction as primarily a military operation. In order to secure civil rights for freed slaves, Northern republicans had to rely on additional constitutional war powers. From a legal standpoint, the Civil War did not end with the surrender of Confederate armies but lasted until 1871 when Georgia’s senator was seated. While many opponents of Reconstruction were motivated by racism, others were compelled by a fear of unchecked military power. How to approach Reconstruction even divided radical Republicans. Downs convincingly argues that the U.S. government should have expanded and extended the use of war powers in the South in order to secure justice and freedom for freed slaves… This work will appeal to general readers as well as specialists interested in a fresh understanding of Reconstruction. -- Michael Farrell * Library Journal *After Appomattox demonstrates how a long and ambitious military occupation aimed to secure freedom for the newly emancipated in the violent, lawless, and chaotic South. Original and revelatory, it has tremendous potential to change our understanding of American Reconstruction. -- David W. Blight, author of American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights EraMoving brilliantly between the lived experience of the Civil War’s forgotten final six years and the fierce legal debates in Washington, After Appomattox is the definitive work on a great paradox of American democracy: the post–Civil War expansion of rights arose out of and depended upon the awesome powers of the wartime state. Downs masterfully reveals how controversies over war powers shaped the course of American freedom. A fundamental rethinking of what we can now call America’s Ten Years’ War. -- John Fabian Witt, author of Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American HistoryDowns demonstrates that the end of the Civil War marked the beginning of another war: the violent struggle for the rights of African Americans that resulted from military occupation of the South and political battles in Washington. After Appomattox is a landmark account of the death throes of slavery and the stormy rise of Reconstruction. -- David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist and Walt Whitman’s America

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWhen Lincoln published a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, warning Confederate states of his intention to issue a final edict on January 1, he did not realize that those two dates stood precisely one hundred days apart. Louis Masur’s Lincoln’s Hundred Days focuses on that crucial period, but it starts more than a year earlier to set the stage for those hundred days, and follows up with the aftermath and consequences of Lincoln’s historic action. Masur…argue[s] persuasively that the progression of events during that critical autumn of the war were full of contingencies and that the final outcome was by no means certain… Provide[s] detailed and careful renderings of these events and of Lincoln’s intellectual journey. -- James M. McPherson * New York Review of Books *Among the strengths of Masur’s book is its account of how the war changed minds—from enlisted and conscripted men to those directing the war—by introducing ‘slavery to soldiers as a reality, not as an abstraction.’ -- Andrew Delbanco * New Republic *[A] splendid book. -- Ed Voves * California Literary Review *A moving, accessible portrayal of Lincoln as a deeply humble, strangely physical presence who spoke in oracular parables. * Kirkus Reviews *A lucid and learned account of the process whereby Lincoln moved toward emancipation, and once so committed, made it the lodestar of the Union… Masur makes much of the importance blacks attributed to the document as their Declaration of Independence and the importance of black soldiers in giving it force… This is now the best work on the proclamation. As its sesquicentennial looms (January 2013), all persons wanting to understand the contingency of freedom should read this book. -- Randall M. Miller * Library Journal (starred review) *Masur delivers an intelligent account of how Lincoln balanced politics with the goal of ending slavery… Readers will enjoy his rich, perceptive history of the passionate maneuvering that produced it. * Publishers Weekly *Masur takes a pivotal moment in time and opens it up like a master watchmaker, revealing the intricate, hidden mechanisms, the tensions and balances, concealed within the most momentous decision that an American president has ever made. A finely wrought and important book. -- Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War AwakeningMasur has written a compelling, convincing page-turner about a dramatic period in history that too many Americans take for granted—the fraught hundred days between Lincoln’s preliminary and final proclamations of freedom, when the fate of liberty itself hung in the balance. Here is superb scholarship and high drama combined into a rich and rewarding narrative. -- Harold Holzer, author of Emancipating LincolnA stirring and penetrating account of those tense days between Lincoln’s preliminary edict and the final Emancipation Proclamation. The story will keep the reader on the edge of his seat until the final pages. -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of FreedomA vital book about the meaning of the Civil War, and of America, brilliantly conceptualized, deeply researched, and elegantly written by one of the foremost scholars of the Civil War era. With fresh insights throughout, coupled with subtle and judicious syntheses, it should be read by anyone interested in America’s past. -- John Stauffer, author of Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

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Book SynopsisAbraham Lincoln projects a larger-than-life image across American history owing to his role as the Great Emancipator. Yet this noble aspect of Lincoln’s identity is the dimension that some historians have cast into doubt. The award-winning historian and Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo offers a vigorous defense of America’s sixteenth president.Trade Review[A] brief, hard-hitting, and clear-eyed book. -- John Wilson * Christianity Today *Lincoln scholar Guelzo explores race in America as an element of African‐American history as affected by Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Declaration… A clear, concise look at one aspect of Lincoln, the man and the president. * Kirkus Reviews *Guelzo’s exploration of Lincoln’s reputation is both accessible and thought provoking. * Publishers Weekly *Guelzo delivers original and tautly argued insights into Lincoln’s antislavery thought and the feral persistence of American racism. No one who reads this superb, provocative book will be tempted to dismiss the depth or sincerity of Lincoln’s personal commitment to emancipation. -- Fergus M. Bordewich, author of America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the UnionIn this penetrating work, Guelzo recovers Lincoln’s reputation as the Great Emancipator and invites us to think anew about the legacies of slavery and freedom in America. The result is an important, timely meditation on issues that continue to haunt the nation. -- Louis P. Masur, author of Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for Union

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Book SynopsisAt the center of Lincoln's political thought and career is an intense passion for equality that runs so deep in the speeches, messages, and letters that it has the force of religious conviction for Lincoln. George Kateb examines these writings to reveal that this passion explains Lincoln's reverence for both the Constitution and the Union.Trade ReviewIt is a delicate moral exercise, Kateb’s attempt to affirm Lincoln’s greatness while nonetheless chastening our idolatry and leaving us with a troubling image of ourselves. There are few writers since Emerson who have even attempted this sort of thing, let alone succeeded at it…Kateb refuses to simplify. The words in his book both bleed and provoke; his double-edged honesty cuts repeatedly against his own druthers, as he says what idolaters and debunkers alike wish not to hear…George Kateb has added a splendid and bracing chapter to [Emerson’s] Representative Men. -- Jeffrey Stout * Commonweal *Unforgiving and original. -- David Bromwich * Reuters *An erudite work that gently unravels the great man’s distortions and political expediency…The book is compelling throughout. * Kirkus Reviews *Kateb is the most interesting and important philosopher of liberalism alive today, and whatever he says is worth thinking about. Although I disagree, sometimes heatedly, with many of the arguments here, it’s also a book I’m going to continue to think about, a book I’m going to have with me for a very long time. -- John Burt, author of Lincoln’s Tragic PragmatismI have read quite a few Lincoln books over the past few years, and Lincoln’s Political Thought is the most enjoyable. For those who know Kateb’s work – and I have been a fan of his for a long time – all of his characteristic flourishes are here on display. -- Steven Smith, editor of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln

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Book SynopsisBanks failed, inequality grew, people were out of work, and slavery threatened to rend the nation in two. The Panic of 1837 drew forth reformers who, animated by self-reliance, became prophets of a new moral order that would make America great again. Philip Gura captures a Romantic moment that was soon overtaken by civil war and postwar pragmatism.Trade ReviewGura…brilliantly connects the harsh privation of the 1837 depression to the intellectual and spiritual reform movements that emerged in the 1840s and ’50s. He does so by offering us seven roughly sequential portraits of American reformers in which he tethers their idealism to real suffering and their very tangible awareness of the ways their community had failed its members. Linking the cultural and intellectual ferment in the 1840s to the economic failure of 1837 is particularly appropriate at a time when only the oldest Americans can remember pre–New Deal America. Softened by Social Security, Medicaid and the various federal handouts that are now on the chopping block, contemporary Americans can barely imagine how an old-fashioned depression smacked people sideways with bankruptcies, penury, displacement and biting shame. -- Carol Bundy * Wall Street Journal *[An] elegant volume…Read after the 2016 election, Gura’s intriguing book, written before it, does shed a kinder light on his benighted reformers, whose commitment to free expression, individual dignity, and social justice reminds us of the importance of dissent—all manner of dissent—and of the power inherent in the individual’s ability to say no. Yet Man’s Better Angels also highlights the willful political ignorance and purposeful childishness with which so many of these reformers confronted, at least in the 1840s, the grievously unfree world in which they lived. -- Brenda Wineapple * The Nation *A lively and engaging jeremiad on the failure of individualism as a source of social reform. Gura's examination of antebellum reformers' efforts to address economic and social dislocations speaks to our own moment as well. -- Robert S. Levine, author of The Lives of Frederick DouglassMan's Better Angels is the most original and important book on antebellum reform to appear in years. Philip Gura shows how the Panic of 1837 functioned as a kind of centrifuge, inspiring new visions of reform in all directions, pushing the nation further and further from its cultural and institutional center. A magisterial work and a pleasure to read. -- John Stauffer, author of Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham LincolnGura offers captivating portraits of antebellum reformists George Ripley, Horace Greeley, William B. Greene, Orson Squire Fowler, Mary Gove Nichols, Henry David Thoreau, and John Brown, along with their somewhat fanciful programs for national improvement…An invaluable contribution to U.S. Middle Period scholarship. -- John Carver Edwards * Library Journal (starred review) *Absorbing and lucid…Gura’s book is deeply pessimistic about individual efficacy in response to social crises, which remains relevant in the 21st century. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *With keen insight and in lucid prose, Philip Gura explores the antebellum crisis through the lives and thought of leading reformers as they clung to the innate goodness of human nature while struggling to cope with the structural power of slavery and capitalist finance, ending with John Brown, who sought to purge the land through blood and violence. -- Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804Lucid and engaging…Man’s Better Angels should be a valuable introduction for students new to the study of antebellum reform. I imagine its claims will also fuel hearty debate in graduate seminars. -- Patrick Mulford O’Connor * Journal of Social History *Gura wrote this book in the wake of America’s 2008 financial crisis, which made him well attuned to the question of how individuals and institutions can be complicit in national trauma… In a moment where both national political parties seem poised for realignments and self-reflection, Gura’s work can help point us toward the long history of that very dilemma. * Civil War Monitor *When democracy itself seems to go off the rails, do you give up and compromise your principles or double down on them? With the impeccable timing of a master historian, Philip Gura invites us to reconsider the costs of self-righteousness as a response to structural injustice. By reconsidering seven reformers who doubled down in the decades before the Civil War, Man's Better Angels will make you rethink your own responses to the worst of times. -- Scott A. Sandage, author of Born Losers: A History of Failure in AmericaPhilip Gura has written a provocative and timely examination of the spectrum of antebellum reform advocates and initiatives that flourished during the years between the nation's first major economic crisis and the Civil War. Confronting the era's most glaring ills—runaway capitalism and plantation slavery—a strikingly variegated brew of men and women, holding to high-minded but quixotic principles, proved impotent to correct the country's course. -- Lawrence Buell, author of The Dream of the Great American NovelScholars interested in the antebellum United States will find this highly readable book engaging and informative. Gura provides a fascinating window into one aspect of the antebellum United States. -- Lesley J. Gordon * Canadian Journal of History *This book provides the best interpretation to date for the origins of this golden era of American cultural and economic experimentation, whose eclecticism and vision, he rightly asserts, have gone unappreciated. -- Tim Roberts * Journal of the Early Republic *

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Book SynopsisThomas Taylor was a junior officer who fought under Sherman at Vicksburg and Chattanooga and on the march through Georgia. His diaries and letters contain vivid descriptions of numerous skirmishes and battles over four years. This volume interleaves Taylor's words with narrative.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewImpressively documented with primary source material, this book is a significant addition to the historiography of the Medal of Honor and how and to whom it has been awarded. The author helps the reader understand how the award nomination and selection process has changed over time and why some acts are recognized as worthy and why some others are not. Highly recommended."" - James H. Willbanks, author of Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War ""Dwight Mears’s strength is objectivity combined with solid scholarship. His treatment of the Medal of Honor involves not only stirring events but the often blatantly political process, affording military students a rare look at America’s most prestigious decoration."" - Barrett Tillman, author of Enterprise: America’s Fightingest Ship and the Men Who Helped Win World War IITable of Contents Preface Introduction Part One: Legal and Policy History 1. From the Revolution through the Civil War: Background and Inception 2. Filling the Army's Policy Vacuum: 1876-1897 3. The Spanish-American War, Veracruz, and Navy Officers: 1898-1915 4. The Purge of 1917: The army Rewrites Its Award History 5. World War I: The Birth of the Pyramid of Honor 6. The Interwar Period: A Bifurcated Medal of Honor and New Decorations 7. World War II: Growing Pains and the End of Noncombat Awards 8. The Korean and Vietnam Wars: New Combat Thresholds 9. Post-Vietnam: Modern Concern over the Decline in Award Frequency Part Two: Exceptions to the Rule: Legislative Administrative, and Judicial Relief 10. Early bills of Relief and Extralegislative Awards 11. Modern Bills of Relief: 10 U.S.C. §1130 12. Administrative Remedies Boards for Correction 13. Administrative Restorations: Mary Walker and William Cody 14. Judicial Remedies: The Administrative Procedure Act 15. Correction of Discrimination or Impropriety Conclusions Appendix: Summary of Medal of Honor Legislation (Excluding Bills of Relief) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLeonidas Polk was one of the more notable, yet controversial, generals of the US Civil War. Recognising his indispensable familiarity with the Mississippi Valley, Confederate president Jefferson Davis commissioned his elevation to a high military position regardless of his lack of prior combat experience.Trade ReviewThere are those who have maintained that General Leonidas Polk did more to bring about Confederate defeat than any other single man. Certainly he stood at the center of the toxic command culture of the Army of Tennessee from 1862 until his death. We have long needed a modern biography of this contradictory man, and Hudson Horn has delivered that and more. His research is stunning in its breadth, and his treatment of Polk is reasoned, mature, and balanced. This is the best Confederate military biography of recent years."" - William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged""A long-overdue reevaluation of the Civil War's most recognizable soldier-cleric. Huston Horn's meticulous research and balanced presentation reveal the complexities, strengths, and weaknesses of Leonidas Polk: churchman, plantation farmer, Southern nationalist, and soldier. Horn's study does much to dispel the almost caricatured image of Polk that frequently appears in modern Civil War history."" - Sam Davis Elliott, author of Soldier of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West

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Book SynopsisWhy does the American Civil War still speak to us so powerfully? Many of the questions at the heart of the conflict are also central to the very idea of America - and that many of them remain unresolved. This book offers the opportunity to pursue these questions from a new, critical perspective.Trade ReviewIn our day, when political polarization reigns supreme, what could be timelier than a collection that explores the political and constitutional dilemmas confronted by our Civil War forebears? These essays provide rich historical insights with provocative contemporary implications." - Timothy S. Huebner, author of Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism"The Civil War raised fundamental issues about our constitutional order, issues that still resonate today. Levine, Merrill, and Stoner have assembled a stellar cast of scholars to revisit the thought of the Civil War era and address broader issues, including the ability of the Constitution to function in a polarized political community and produce justice in a multiracial society. These essays have much to teach us not only about the Civil War era but also about our present predicaments." - Daniel Farber, author of Lincoln's ConstitutionTable of Contents Preface Introduction: the civil War as a Regime Question, Thomas W. Merrill, Alan Levine, and James R. Stoner, Jr. Part I: The Problem 1. The Later Jefferson and the Problem of Natural Rights, Thomas W. Merrill 2. Slavery and the US Supreme Court, Keith E. Whittington 3. Antebellum Natural Rights Liberalism, Daniel S. Malachuk 4. Scientific Racism in Antebellum America, Alan Levine 5. From Calhoun to Secession, James H. Read Part II: Hard Choices 6. Lincoln and "the Public Estimate of the Negro": From Anti-Amalgamation to Antislavery, Diana J. Schaub 7. Why Did Lincoln Go to War?, Steven B. Smith 8. The Lincolnian Constitution, Caleb Verbois 9. To Preserve, Protect, and Defend: The Emancipation Proclamation, W. B. Allen 10. The Case of the Confederate Constitution, James R. Stoner, Jr. Part III: Pyrrhic Victories? 11. Completing the Constitution: the Reconstruction Amendments, Michael Zuckert 12. The Politics of Reconstruction and the Problem of Self-Government, Philip B. Lyons 13. "A School for the Moral Education of the Nation": Frederick Douglass on the Meaning of the Civil War, Peter C. Myers 14. The South and American Constitutionalism after the Civil War, Johnathan O'Neill List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisIn this first of three planned volumes for the University Press of Kansas’s Constitutional Thinking series, Mark Graber aims to restore to contemporary memory the Fourteenth Amendment drafted by those Republican and Unionist members of Congress who supported congressional reconstruction.Trade ReviewIn meticulous detail Mark Graber shows how in the run-up to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment congressional Republicans shaped the provisions eventually written into that provision with an eye to ensuring control of the government by unionists, which is to say Republicans. He reorients our understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment away from the rights it undoubtedly guarantees to the political effects its framers sought to achieve, among which were unionist control of state governments so that rights could be protected. Though today we do not pay much attention to the sections of the Fourteenth Amendment its framers cared most about, Graber’s arguments tell us a great deal about how we should understand what constitutions actually do." - Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law emeritus, Harvard Law School, and author of The Constitution of the United States of America: A Contextual Analysis"Mark Graber has opened our eyes not only to a lost history of the Fourteenth Amendment, but also to its Framers’ central purpose. They sought to create the conditions for a democratic politics that would protect and empower people, both Black and white, who had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War. This brilliant book, part of a projected multi-volume series, teaches that the way we shape our political institutions is every bit as important as abstract guarantees of constitutional rights." - Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law SchoolTable of Contents Text of Amendment XIV (1868) Series Foreword Acknowledgments A Preface to the Forgotten Fourteenth Amendment Series Introduction: Three Republican Soloists and the Republican Chorus 1. The Exclusion Debate 2. The Problem of Rebel Rule 3. Protecting and Empowering the Loyal 4. Guarantees 5. To Colorado and Beyond Conclusion: Rebels, Loyalists, and Racial Equality Appendixes Table A.1: House Votes on the Fourteenth Amendment, the Exclusion Resolution, and Statehood for Colorado and Nebraska Table A.2: Senate Votes on the Fourteenth Amendment, the Exclusion Resolution, and Statehood for Colorado and Nebraska Table A.3: References to “:Rebel” and “Loyal” in the House of Representatives Table A.4: References to “Rebel” and “Loyal” in the Senate Table A.5: References Paired with “Rebel” in the Thirty-Ninth Congress, First Session: All Table A.6: References Paired with “Rebel” in the Thirty-Ninth Congress, First Session: Opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment Table A.7: Conditions for Readmission of Former Confederate States: Members of Congress Table A.8: Conditions of Readmission of Former Confederate States: Petitions Calendar of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, First Session Notes Index

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Book SynopsisHighlights the striking similarities between the US Civil War and the Great War by analysing how the Civil War affected the American reaction to and experience in the Great War while attending to enlisted men, military officers, and political leaders.Trade Review"Finally! We needed a book just like this, and now we have it. The fascinating essays in this collection make a compelling case for some striking similarities between the American Civil War and the Great War. The two conflicts no longer seem distant from one another, but instead part of the same era. No matter your historical interests, you will learn something new from the juxtapositions made in this unique book."—Lorien Foote, Patricia and Bookman Peters Professor of History, Texas A&M University, and author of Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War "Silbey and Wongsrichanalai provide readers with an important juxtaposition of the Civil War and the Great War—both essential for understanding America’s past and present. Besides their own splendid reflections, the editors also gathered a cadre of scholars who draw fascinating parallels between the two wars, anchored by Steven Trout’s thoughtful afterword."—Edward A. GutiÉrrez, director of Center for Military History and Grand Strategy, Hillsdale College, and author of Doughboys on the Great War: How American Soldiers Viewed Their Military ExperienceTable of Contents Foreword, Jennifer D. Keene Acknowledgments Introduction: Remembrance of Wars Past: The American Civil War and the Great War at Their Sesquicentennial and Centennial Anniversaries, David J. Silbey and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai 1. “On Each Side There Emerged a Supreme Commander”: Ulysses S. Grant and John J. Pershing (and Douglas Haig), 1861-1918, David J. Silbey 2. Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Dying for One’s Country, Brian Dirck 3. African American Soldiers: The Struggle for Equality through Service in the Civil War and Great War, Debra Sheffer 4. “By Word or Act Oppose the Cause of the United States”: Loyalty in the Civil War-Era and Great War-Era America, Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai 5. War and the Shaping of American Medicine: The American Civil War and the Great War, Dale Smith and Shauna Devine 6. Healing the Unseen Wounds of War: Treating Mental Trauma in the Civil War and the Great War, Kathleen Logothetis Thompson 7. Blood and Soil: Americans and Environment in the Trenches of Petersburg and the Western Front, Brian Allen Drake 8. “We Owe Everything to Their Valor and Sacrifice”: Ulysses S. Grant’s and John J. Pershing’s Narratives of Command, Steven Trout List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisAddresses two constitutional issues: first, whether the states in 1860 had a right to secede from the Union and second, what significance slavery had in defining the constitutional Union. These two matters came together when the states seceded on the grounds that the system of government they had agreed to had been violated.Trade ReviewPeter Radan has produced a very learned defense of secession under the constitutions of 1878 and 1860. The author successfully challenges conventional wisdom that Abraham Lincoln was speaking unquestioned constitutional truth when in his inaugural address he pronounced Southern secession unconstitutional. The constitutional right of a state in 1787 and 1860 to secede from the Union, Radan livingly details, was at least as plausible as the conventional claim that states in 1787 and afterward had no constitutional right to secede from the Union." - Mark A. Graber, Regents Professor, University of Maryland Carey School of Law, and author of Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of the Constitutional Reform after the Civil War"In this important, pathbreaking book, Peter Radan takes a close look at an idea that has been off-limits for over a hundred years: that the Confederate arguments for secession might have had some merit. With the Civil War fresh in American minds, secessionist arguments had to be branded as heresy, and they were. But now that we have more distance, we can afford to take a new and more objective look. And what we learn about injustices of the past may show the way to a more just future." - Kermit Roosevelt, David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and author of The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s StoryTable of Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Glossary Prologue Introduction 1. “An Irrepressible Conflict”: Slavery and the Union’ Territorial Expansion 2. “An Indestructible Union”: Nationalist and Compact Theories of the Constitution 3. “A Peculiar Species of Property”: The Constitution and Slavery 4. “The Constitutional Compact Has Been Deliberately Broken”: Constitutional Breaches and the Legal Justification of Secession 5. The Final Word Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn analysis of West Point’s development of military science curriculum in the first half of the nineteenth century and its effect on preparations for, and conduct of, the Civil War.Trade Review"Hope has written a book that will stand the test of time as the definitive treatise of the development of a professional American army."—Robert Grandchamp, Blue & Gray Magazine"Hope has persuasively challenged the standard narrative about West Point, the "Old Army," and the evolution of American military doctrine. Scholars whose work involves these topics cannot afford to overlook this book."—Rob Andrew Jr., American Historical Review"This book is remarkably researched and cogently written, and it will make itself invaluable in the understanding of both the antebellum army and its officers' education."—Bradford Wineman, Journal of Southern History"In A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thought, Hope demonstrates that the science of military thought and theory during this period was about much more than simply preparing for and waging continental war."—Andrew J. Ziebell, Army History"A well-researched and well-written contribution to the early development of American military thought. Readers who are interested in West Point and the essential role that its graduates played in both the Mexican and Civil Wars will find the book to be especially interesting."—Roger Cunningham, Journal of America's Military Past"A Scientific Way of War will appeal to both professionals and lay persons with a serious interest in the US Army, its premier professional Academy, nineteenth-century American defense policy, the nature of a particular national approach to military theory and doctrine, and the professionalization of the American armed forces."—Richard Swain, Michigan War Studies Review“A detailed, thoughtful, and provocative explanation of the evolution of the U.S. Army’s understanding of military science and why this scientific view of war was so important in the nation’s military history and to the conduct of the Civil War.”—Brian McAllister Linn, Ralph R. Thomas Professor in Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University and author of The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War“Truly original. . . . No other scholar has so successfully explained what Americans understood by the phrase ‘military science’ as taught—and modified over time—at West Point, and how that doctrine related to the nation’s geographic position, quest for internal development, and preparation for and perceptions of war.”—Peter Maslowski, professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and author of Looking for a Hero: Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War "Highly recommended to any reader interested in the early development of the U.S. army."—Civil War Books and Authors“[Ian Hope’s] keen insights and original interpretations come through clearly in his new book, A Scientific Way of War. His penetrating analyses revolutionize our understanding of American military thinking in the antebellum era. This book is required reading for anyone who would understand generalship and high command in the American Civil War.”—Richard J. Sommers, senior historian emeritus, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, U.S. Army War CollegeTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Colonial and Early National Military Science2. Army Reforms, 1815–18203. West Point’s Scientific Curriculum4. Internal Improvements5. Jacksonian Military Science6. Military Science during and after the Mexican War7. Antebellum Military Science8. Military Science in the Civil WarConclusionAppendix A. West Point CurriculaAppendix B. Antebellum and Civil War Officer StatisticsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA magisterial work by a veteran historian, The Early Morning of War blends narrative and analysis to convey the full scope of the campaign of First Bull Run - its drama and suspense as well as its practical and tactical underpinnings and ramifications.Trade ReviewIn this book, Edward Longacre has applied his considerable skills as a biographer to a vivid piece of American history, injecting humanity and fresh insight to the story of the Civil War's first major battle. Practicing the lost art of personification and characterization with both flourish and wisdom, Longacre makes the players in this immense drama live anew."" - John Hennessy, author of Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas""Extensively researched and full of fresh insights and information, Edward G. Longacre's finely crafted Early Morning of War offers a remarkably thorough, highly readable account of the men and events that shaped the course of the first great campaign of the American Civil War."" - Ethan S. Rafuse, author of McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union and Manassas: A Battlefield Guide

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Book SynopsisFor a half century, John Ellis Wool (1784-1869) was one of America's most illustrious figures - most notably as an officer in the US Army during the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War. Courage Above All Things marks the first full biography of Wool.

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Book SynopsisJim Bridger was a mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, and lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales he himself liked to tell. In a biography that gives Bridger his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman's full measure for the first time.

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Book SynopsisThrough letters, personal accounts of the men, and other sources, author Joseph C. Fitzharris recounts how the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, prisoners of war, broken in spirit and morale, went home and found redemption and renewed purpose fighting the Dakota Indians.

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Book SynopsisA controversial character largely known as a Union colonel who led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery (1814-71) waged a far more personal and radical war against slavery than popular history suggests. It is the true story of this militant abolitionist that Todd Mildfelt and David Schafer tell in this volume.Trade Review“In this carefully researched and crafted biography of James Montgomery, the authors tell the story of an often-overlooked Kansas Jayhawker: a curious blend of God-fearing pioneer farmer and preacher who became an anti-slavery zealot on the Kansas-Missouri border and a celebrated commander of Black troops during the Civil War. Montgomery’s life was momentous and worthy of the attention it is now receiving.” - Virgil W. Dean, editor of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains (1990–2011)“Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind illuminates the life of this controversial character, charting James Montgomery’s evolution into a full-fledged abolitionist on the prairies of Kansas and leader of an all-Black regiment during the Civil War. Thanks to the authors’ diligent research, Montgomery’s story is now situated within the broader context of resistance to slavery.” - Kristen Epps, author of Slavery on the Periphery: The Kansas-Missouri Border in the Antebellum and Civil War Eras“This well-researched book vividly re-creates the tumultuous life and times of James Montgomery, a genuine firebrand who helped precipitate and radicalize the American Civil War. We see the guerrilla chieftain in prewar clashes against pro-slavery terrorists along the Kansas-Missouri border transform into the Union colonel who recruited Black soldiers and then led them in combat and raids that laid waste to stately Southern plantations and brought freedom to the enslaved. Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind peels away layers of myth and introduces us to a driven and courageous man.” - Gregory J. W. Urwin, author of Victory in Defeat: The Wake Island Defenders in Captivity, 1941–1945

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisMost of the Civil War was fought on Southern soil. The responsibility for defending the Confederacy rested with two great military forces. One of these armies defended the “heartland” of the Confederacy - a vital area which embraced Tennessee and portions of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky. This is the story of that army.

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Book SynopsisOffers eight case studies that illuminate the critical roles the Union corps commanders played in shaping the US Civil War's course and outcome. The contributors examine widespread assumptions about these men while considering the array of internal and external forces that shaped their efforts on and off the battlefield.

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Book SynopsisUses letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and muster rolls to provide a detailed account of the origins, enrollments, casualties, and desertion rates of the Army of Northern Virginia. Illustrations chart the Tigers' positions on key battlefields in the tumultuous campaigns throughout Virginia.

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Book SynopsisExamines the effects of military service, particularly combat, on the psyches and emotional well-being of Civil War soldiers - Black and white, North and South. Invisible Wounds is a sweeping reevaluation of the mental damage inflicted by America’s most tragic conflict.

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Book SynopsisEssays in this collection approach Civil War veterans from oblique angles, including theatre, political, and disability history, as well as borderlands and memory studies. Contributors examine the lives of Union and Confederate veterans, African American veterans, former prisoners of war, amputees, and ex-guerrilla fighters.Trade ReviewThe War Went On: Reconsidering the Lives of Civil War Veterans both encapsulates and extends the recent outpouring of work on Civil War veterans. The veterans analyzed from several creative angles engage in politics, recall their prison experience, build memorial halls, and seek pensions. But they also defend the honor of their service, go to live in veterans' homes, and even seek pensions despite being deserters. This rich collection of essays offers a wide range of veterans' voices, tackles knotty questions about their experiences, and provides direction for future work. The War Went On is a valuable and timely collection, reminding us that Civil War veterans, like all veterans, were not a monolithic group. Their postwar lives were often messy and complicated, and not uniformly defined by their war experience. Readers will further gain an excellent sense of current debates over the Civil War's lasting and significant legacy. Jordan and Rothera's magnificent collection sets a new standard in Civil War studies. Concise, deeply researched, and well written, this volume captures the incredibly diverse homecomings of those who survived America's greatest cataclysm. While each essay makes an invaluable individual contribution to the field, collectively they reflect the absolute best of current scholarship on this important issue.

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Book SynopsisTells the dramatic story of how vigilance committees organised the Underground Railroad and revolutionized the abolitionist movement. Jesse Olsavsky reveals how the committees cultivated a movement of ideas animated by a motley assortment of agitators and intellectuals who shared critical information with one another.

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Book SynopsisOne of the most effective units to fight on either side of the Civil War, the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia served under Robert E. Lee from the Seven Days Battles in 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox in 1865. Susannah Ural presents a nontraditional unit history that traces the experiences of these soldiers and their families.

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Book SynopsisUses the lens of the Wild Woman display to explore the growing cultural divisions between the North and the South in 1856, especially the differing gender ideologies of the northern Republican Party and the more southern focused Democrats.

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Book SynopsisOf the thousands of books written about the US Civil War, few mention the environment, and none address the topic as a principal theme. This volume blends traditional and natural history to create a unique text that explores the impact of the Civil War on the environment and the reciprocal influence of plants and animals on the war effort.Trade ReviewIn addition to the natural history material, this volume provides engaging environmental, economic, social, and cultural insights into the lives of the soldiers of this war. Highly recommended."—P. D. Thomas, emeritus, Wichita State University

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Book SynopsisDrawing on the drill manuals available to officers and a close reading of battle reports, Civil War Infantry Tactics demonstrates that linear tactics provided the best formations and maneuvers to use with the single-shot musket, whether rifle or smoothbore.

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Book SynopsisKilled in action at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston stands as the highest-ranking American military officer to die in combat. In The Iron Dice of Battle, noted Civil War historian Timothy Smith reexamines Johnston's life and death, offering remarkable insights into this often-contradictory figure.Trade ReviewEvery Civil War figure should be fortunate enough to have such an important book written about his life and career by such an outstanding scholar." - John F. Marszalek, author of Commander of All Lincoln's Armies: A Life of General Henry W. Halleck"Timothy B. Smith explores a man both flawed and formidable, a chess player by choice yet unafraid to 'roll the iron dice.' This is a much-needed modern view of a man of many contradictions." - Larry J. Daniel, author of Engineering in the Confederate Heartland"Smith undertakes a painstaking analysis of Albert Sidney Johnston as a man and a soldier, illuminating his dual nature as a careful chess player and an impulsive gambler, and how it led him to the disasters of 1862. A truly fresh and perceptive study of perhaps the greatest might-have-been of the western Confederacy." - Sam Davis Elliott, author of Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator

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