Civil wars Books

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Destined to become a classic primer about modern Yemen and the flaws of global capitalism, Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us About The World provides a wealth of knowledge about the plight of modern Yemen and the contemporary world." * Arab Studies Quarterly *“A masterful new study. . . . Blumi’s work provides an invaluable service to those seeking to understand the current war on Yemen in its historical context." * Arab Calgary News *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex." * Asian Review of World History *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex. It collapses so many 'divides' in scholarly considerations of 'weak' states and polities on the so-called periphery versus so-called core states. It gives agency to the peoples and groups of what are often seen to be marginal states and societies, rarely discussed in relation to world politics or global political development. . . . A must-read for anyone claiming to know and understand the world we live in today, regardless of their field of scholarly research." * Asian Review of World Histories *"Blumi’s respect and compassion for the people of Yemen are palpable, and because of this, Destroying Yemen has moral immediacy rarely found in scholarship. The work is accessibly written, and thus can inform a more general audience, in addition to the cadre of regional specialists, on whose analysis it will hopefully have an impact. Moreover, anyone with media credentials that wishes to ‘report’ on the brutality Yemenis now face day after day should read it very carefully before filing his or her story." * Global Intellectual History *"This is a compelling analysis of a tragic but unfolding story. It is a deeply humane, passionate, conviction-led, historically rich analysis. It is rigorously researched, detailed, complex. It collapses so many 'divides' in scholarly considerations of 'weak' states and polities on the so-called periphery versus so-called core states. It gives agency to the peoples and groups of what are often seen to be marginal states and societies, rarely discussed in relation to world politics or global political development. . . . A must-read for anyone claiming to know and understand the world we live in today, regardless of their field of scholarly research." * Asian Review of World Histories *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Dates, Abbreviations, and Transliteration Introduction 1 • The Quest for Global Hegemony Starts There 2 • The Region That Pumps the Heart of the Cold War, 1941–1960 3 • Birthing Revolution: A Genealogy of the 1962 Coup 4 • Wrong from the Start: Modernization and Development and the Violence They Spun 5 • Making Yemen Dance: The Regime and the Politics of Chaos 6 • Plundering Yemen and Its Post-Spring Hiatus Coda: Yemen’s Relevance to the Larger World Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAfter twelve years in Spain, Jason Webster had developed a deep love for his adopted homeland; his life there seemed complete. But when he and his Spanish wife moved into an idyllic old farmhouse in the mountains north of Valencia, by chance he found an unmarked mass grave from the Spanish Civil War on his doorstep.Spurred to investigate the history of the Civil War, a topic many of his Spanish friends still seemed to treat as taboo, he began to uncover a darker side to the country. Witness to a brutal fist-fight sponsored by remnants of Franco''s Falangists, arrested and threatened by the police in the former HQ of the Spanish Foreign Legion, sheltered by a beautiful transvestite, shunned by locals, haunted by ghosts and finally robbed of his identity, Webster encountered a legacy of cruelty and violence that seems to linger on seventy years after the bloody events of that war.As in Webster''s previous books, Duende and Andalus, Guerra! reveals the esseTrade ReviewAn absorbing book that conveys the raw Spanish experience - its heat, dust, light and shade - with rare and startling actuality. Admirers of his first two books will have their high regard confirmed by this one. Newcomers should start here. They will not be disappointed * Literary Review *Written with considerable power and beauty * The Sunday Times *The term "romantic traveller", once used indiscriminately by Spaniards to describe any foreigner with a passionate interest in Spain, seems particularly applicable to Jason Webster... you are likely to be seduced by his powers as a storyteller * Independent *Squarely in the Almodovarian reality of contemporary Spain... goes straight to the heart * Tomas Graves *Webster's surely right to see the legacy of the war in terms of - often turbulent - undercurrents; for him it informs a little-known and largely nasty side of Spain... revelatory and rings true * The Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisOliver Cromwell is one of the most puzzling and controversial figures in English history. In this excellent introduction, Barry Coward uses Cromwell's own words and actions to analyse the life of Oliver Cromwell as a political figure and look at the historical problems associated with his exercise of power.Table of ContentsAbbreviations and Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Unknown Cromwell 2. Cromwell and the Civil War, 1642-46 3. The Search for Settlement, 1646-49 4. Cromwell and the Rump, 1649-53 5. Cromwell and the Godly Reformation, 1653-54 6. Parliament and Personal Rule, September 1654- September 1656 7. The Continuing Quest for Settlement and Reformation, September 1656 – September 1658 8. Conclusion List of Dates Bibliographical Essay Index

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Book SynopsisA Pulitzer Prize?winning journalist reveals the little-known story of the Union soldiers from Alabama who played a decisive role in the Civil War, and how they were scrubbed from the history books.?It is my sincere hope that this compelling and submerged history is integrated into our understanding of our nation, and allows us to embrace new heroes of the past.??Imani Perry, professor, Harvard University, and National Book Award?winning author of South to AmericaWe all know how the Civil War was won: Courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But is there more to the story?As Pulitzer Prize?winning journalist Howell Raines shows, it was not only soldiers from northern states who helped General William Tecumseh Sherman burn Atlanta to the ground but also an unsung regiment of 2,066 Alabamian yeoman farmers?including at least one member of Raines?s own family.Called the First Alabama Cavalry, U.S.A., this regiment of mountain Unionists, which included sixteen formerly enslaved Black men, was the point of the spear that Sherman drove through the heart of the Confederacy. The famed general hailed their skills and courage. So why don?t we know anything about them?Silent Cavalry is part epic American history, part family saga, and part scholarly detective story. Drawing on the lore of his native Alabama and investigative skills honed by six decades in journalism, Raines brings to light a conspiracy that sought to undermine the accomplishments of these renegade southerners?a key component of the Lost Cause effort to restore glory to white southerners after the war, even at the cost of the truth.In this important new contribution to our understanding of the Civil War and its legacy, Raines tells the thrilling tale of the formation of the First Alabama while exposing the tangled web of how its wartime accomplishments were silenced, implicating everyone from a former Confederate general to a gaggle of Lost Cause historians in the Ivy League and a sanctimonious former keeper of the Alabama state archives. By reversing the erasure of the First Alabama, Silent Cavalry is a testament to the immense power of historians to destroy as well as to redeem.

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Table of ContentsNote: Each chapter concludes with Further Reading. 1. PERSPECTIVES ON THE SECTIONAL CONFLICT. Essays. James M. McPherson, The Second American Revolution," Hayes Historical Journal, Spring 1992. Drew Gilpin Faust, "We Should Grow Too Fond of It: Why We Love the Civil War," Civil War History, December 2004, pp.368-83. LeeAnn Whites, "The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender," in Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, eds., Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (Oxford University Press,1992), pp.3-21. Edward L. Ayers, "The First Occupation," The New York Times Magazine, May 29, 2005 (entire article). 2. THE SLAVE SOUTH. Documents. 1. Frederick Law Olmsted Observes Southern Lassitude, 1854. 2. Hinton Rowan Helper Exposes Southern Backwardness, 1857. 3. James Henry Hammond Claims Southern Cultural Superiority, 1845. 4. George Fitzhugh Praises Southern Society, 1854. 5. J.D.B. DeBow Explains Why Nonslaveholders Should Support Slavery, 1860. 6. An Abolitionist Journal Condemns Slavery and the Slave Trade, September 1837. 7. N.L. Rice, a Proslavery Minister, Blames Abolitionists for the Slave Trade, October 1845. Essays. James M. McPherson, "Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question," Civil War History, September 1983, pp.230-44. Steven Deyle, The Domestic Slave Trade as Slavery's Lifeblood. 3. THE IMPENDING CRISIS. Documents. 1. The Independent Democrats Protest the Kansas-Nebraska Act, January 1854. 2. Stephen Douglas of Illinois Explains the Objectives of His Bill, February 1854. 3. Senator Robert Toombs of Georgia Insists on Congress's Responsibility to Protect Slavery in the Territories, January 1856. 4. Senator William Henry Seward of New York Warns of an Irrepressible Conflict, October 1858. 5. Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi Denounces the Federal Government for Failing to Protect the South, December 1859. Essays. William E. Gienapp, "The Republican Party and the Slave Power," in Robert H. Abzug and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds., New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986) pp. 51-75. Don E. Fehrenbacher, "Kansas, Republicanism, and the Crisis of the Union," in Fehrenbacher, The South and Three Sectional Crises (Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pp. 45-65. 4. SECTIONALISM AND SECESSION. Documents. 1. Ralph Waldo Emerson Condemns the South for the Assault on Charles Sumner, February 1857. 2. Abraham Lincoln Addresses the Issue of Sectionalism, February 1860. 3. South Carolina Declares and Justifies Its Secession, December 1860. 4. Mississippi's Secession Commissioner Urges Georgia to Secede, December 1860. 5. Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens Identifies "The Cornerstone of the Confederacy," March 1861. Essays. Susan-Mary Grant, "When Is a Nation Not a Nation?: The Crisis of American Nationality," in Grant, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (University Press of Kansas, 2000), pp.130-52. Manisha Sinha, "Revolution or Counterrevolution?: The Political Ideology of Secession in Antebellum South Carolina," Civil War History, September 2000, pp.205-26. 5. GENERALS AND CAMPAIGNS: HOW THEY FOUGHT. Documents. 1. George B. McClelland Gives President Lincoln a Lesson in Grand Strategy, July 1862. 2. General Robert E. Lee Takes the Offensive, September 1862. 3. General E. Porter Alexander, C.S.A., Assesses Lea and McClellan at Antietam, September 1862. 4. General Grant Transmits His Plan for the Overland Campaign, April 1864. 5. Grant Recalls His Thoughts on the Eve of the Overland Campaign, 1886. 6. General William T. Sherman Explains How the War Has Changed, September 1864. 7. General Grant Reports His Assignment Accomplished, July 1865. Essays. Gary W. Gallagher, "A Civil War Watershed: The 1862 Richmond Campaign in Perspective," in Gary Gallagher, ed., The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula and the Seven Days (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000) pp. 2-23. Mark Grimsley, "The Significance of the Overland Campaign, April-May 1864," in Grimsley, And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May-June 1864 (University of Nebraska Press, 2002), xiii-xvii, 222-39 + map on p.5. 6. SOLDIERS AND COMBAT: WHY THEY FOUGHT. Documents. 1. John H. Cochran, C.S.A., Argues that Secession Will Protect Slave-holders, March 1861. 2. Charles Harvey Brewster, U.S.A., Rejects Accommodation with Slave-holders, March 1862. 3. Charles Willis, U.S.A., Comments on Runaway Slaves, April 1862. 4. Eugene Blackford, C.S.A., Describes His First Experience of Combat, July 1861. 5. Wilbur Fisk, U.S.A., Discusses Morale among the Soldiers, April 1863. 6. Tally Simpson, C.S.A., Reports on the Aftermath of Gettysburg, July 1863. Essays. Aaron Sheehan-Dean, "Everyman's War: Confederate Enlistment in Civil War Virginia," Civil War History, March 2004, pp.5-26. Chandra Miller, "A 'Vexed Question': White Union Soldiers on Slavery and Race," in Aaron Sheehan-Dean, ed., The View from the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers (University Press of Kentucky, 2007), pp.31-66. Reid Mitchell, "From Volunteer to Soldier: The Psychology of Service," in Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers (Viking Penguin, 1988), pp.64-82. 7. THE NORTHERN HOME FRONT. Documents. 1. The Detroit Soldiers' Aid Society President Calls on Women to Assist the War Effort, November 1861. 2. Mary Livermore Recounts How She Organized the 1864 Northwestern Sanitary Fair, 1889. 3. Cincinnati Sewing Women Protest Their Wartime Wages, February 1865. 4. Henry W. Bellows Explains the Work and Goals of the Sanitary Commission, January 1864. 5. President Lincoln Addresses the Philadelphia Central Fair, June 1864. 6. Secretary of the Treasury Chase Appeals to the Public for Financial Support, July 1861. 7. The New York Tribune Supports Expansion of the Government Bond Drive, March 1865. Essays. Nina Silber, "The Problem of Women's Patriotism, North and South," in Nina Silber, Gender and the Sectional Conflict (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009) pp. 37-68. Melinda Lawson, "Let the Nation Be Your Bank: Jay Cooke and the War Bond Drives," in Lawson, Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North (University Press of Kansas, 2002), pp. 40-64. 8. THE SOUTHERN HOME FRONT. Documents. 1. Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia Denounces Confederate Policy, September 1862. 2. Eliza Adams Seeks Assistance from the Confederate Government, 1862. 3. Plain Folk Protest the Burden of the War, February 1863. 4.The North Carolina Legislature Protests the Confederate Debt and Martial Law, May 1864. 5. Catherine Edmonston of North Carolina Discusses Matters Public and Domestic, January 1865. 6. Cornelia Peake McDonald of Virginia Comments on Class and Conscription, March 1864. 7. Elizabeth Patterson of Virginia Tries to Reconcile Her Loyalty and Her "Misfortune," March 1865. Essays. Drew Gilpin Faust, "Patriotism, Sacrifice and Self-Interest," in Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), same extract as in 2nd. Edition. Amy M. Taylor, "Of Necessity and Public Benefit: Southern Families and Their Appeals for Protection," in Catherine Clinton, ed., Southern Families at War: Loyalty and Conflict in the Civil War South (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.77-93. Paul Escott, "Policy-making Produces Innovation and Controversy," in Escott, Military Necessity: Civil-Military Relations in the Confederacy (Praeger Security International, 2006), pp. 15-37. 9. ENDING SLAVERY. Documents. 1. General Benjamin F. Butler Discovers the "Contrabands," July 1861. 2. The Freedmen's Inquiry Commission Considers Policy toward the Former Slaves, June 1863. 3. President Lincoln Defends Emancipation ("The Conkling Letter"), August 1863. 4. The U.S. Adjutant General Describes the Condition of Fleeing Slaves, August 1863. 5. Joseph Miller, U.S.A., Protests the Mistreatment of His Family by the U.S. Army, November 1864. 6. James H. Payne, U.S.A., Complains of Racial Discrimination on the Battlefield, August 1864. 7. Frederick Douglass States the Freedmen's Demands, April 1865. 8. Gertrude Thomas Is Upset that Her Slaves Are Leaving, May 1865. Essays. Allen C. Guelzo, "Defending Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and the Conkling Letter, 1863," Civil War History, December 2002, pp.313-37. Joseph T. Glatthaar, "Black Glory: The African-American Role in Union Victory," in Gabor S. Boritt, ed., Why the Confederacy Lost (Oxford University Press, 1992), pp.135-62. 10. NORTHERN REPUBLICANS AND RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. Documents. 1. Richard H. Dana, Jr., Presents His "Grasp of War" Theory, June 1865. 2. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois Explains His Civil Rights Bill, January and April 1866. 3. Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania States His Terms, January 1867. 4. Representative George W. Julian of Indiana Defines the Scope of Reconstruction, January 1867. 5. Senator John Sherman of Ohio Urges Caution and Moderation Towards the South, February 1867. 6. Congress's Terms for Readmission and Reconstruction, June 1866 and March 1867. 7. Albion Tourgee, a North Carolina Republican, Later Condemns Congress's Reconstruction Policy, 1879. Essays. Eric Foner, "The Radical Republicans," in Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (HarperCollins, 1988), pp.228-39. Michael Les Benedict, "Preserving the Constitution: The Conservative Basis of Radical Reconstruction," Journal of American History 61 (June 1974), pp.65-90. 11. LIFE AND LABOR IN THE SOUTH AFTER EMANCIPATION. Documents. 1. Martie Curtis Remembers Her Struggle After Emanciptaion (undated). 2. A Georgia Planter Requests that Freedwomen Be Required to Work. 3. Henry Adams Reports on Women and Fieldwork, 1867. 4. A Freedmen's Bureau Agent Discusses Labor Relations, November 1867. 5. Richard H. Cain of South Carolina Stresses the Importance of Land, February 1868. 6. Edward King Describes the Postwar Plantation System in the Natchez District, 1875. Essays. Leslie A. Schwalm, "'Sweet Dreams of Freedom': Freedwomen's Reconstruction of Life and Labor in Lowcountry South Carolina," Journal of Women's History, Spring 1997, pp.9-30. Michael W. Fitzgerald, The Freedmen's Bureau and Social Control in Alabama. 12. RECONSTRUCTING SOUTHERN POLITICS. Documents. 1. The State Colored Convention Addresses the People of Alabama, May 1867. 2. Former Governor James L. Orr Defends South Carolina's Republican Government, June 1871. 3. Representative Robert B. Elliott of South Carolina Demands Federal Civil Rights, January 1874. 4. Representative Alexander White of Alabama Defends "Carpetbaggers," February 1875. 5. Albert T. Morgan of Mississippi Recalls His Achievements as Sherriff, 1884. Essays. Steven Hahn, "A Society Turned Upside Down," in Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet (Harvard University Press, 2003), pp.237-59. Rebecca J. Scott, "Building Citizenship in Louisiana, 1862-1873," in Scott, Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery (Harvard University Press, 2005), pp.36-60. 13. ENDING RECONSTRUCTION. Documents. 1. Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri Condemns Reconstruction, January 1871. 2. James Shepherd Pike Offers Liberal Republican View of Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1873. 3. Representative L.Q.C. Lamar of Mississippi Assails Reconstruction, June 1874 4. Governor William P. Kellogg of Louisiana Demands Punishment for the Coushatta Assassins, September 1874. 5. Governor Adelbert Ames Deplores the Violence in Mississippi, September 1875. 6. Governor Daniel H. Chamberlain of South Carolina Defends Conciliation and Reform, January 1876. 7. President Grant Disclaims Responsibility for Reconstruction in South Carolina, July 1876. Essays. Michael Perman, "Counter Reconstruction: The Role of Violence in Southern Redemption," in Eric Anderson and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., eds., The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin (Louisiana State University Press, 1992), pp.121-40. Heather Cox Richardson, "Black Workers and the South Carolina Government, 1871-75," in Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 (Harvard University Press, 2001). 14. THE CIVIL WAR IN HISTORICAL MEMORY. Documents. 1. Jubal Early Defends the Legacy of the Confederacy, August 1873. 2. Roger A. Pryor Elevates Soldiers' Heroism Over Slaves' Emancipation, May 1877. 3. Frederick Douglass Urges Americans to Remember the War's True Meaning, May 1878. 4. William T. Sherman Insists There Was "Right" and "Wrong" in the War, May 1878. 5. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Calls for Reconciliation, May 1884. 6. George W. Williams Proposes a Monument Honoring Black Soldiers' valor, 1888. 7. Walt Whitman Speculates that "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books," 1882-83. Essays. David W. Blight, "Decoration Days: The Origins of Memorial Day in North and South," in Alice Fahs and Joan Waugh, eds,, The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), pp.94-123. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, "Race, Memory, and Masculinity: Black Veterans Recall the Civil War," in Joan E. Cashin, ed., The War Was You and Me: Civilians and the American Civil War (Princeton University Press, 2002), pp.136-52."

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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 SynopsisA treasure for the eye and mind (The New York Times) about the greatest war in American history—and a magnificent companion volume to the celebrated PBS television series by one of our most treasured filmmakers. • With more than 500 illustrations: rare Civil War photographs—many never before published—as well as paintings, lithographs, and maps reproduced in full color. It was the greatest war in American history. It was waged in 10,000 places—from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it and more than 600,000 men died in it. Not only the immensity of the cataclysm but the new weapons, the new standards of generalship, and the new strategies of destruction—together with the birth of photography—were to make the Civil War an event present ever since in the American consciousness. Thousands of books have been writte

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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 SynopsisNowhere was the Civil War as savage as it was in Missouri - and nowhere did it produce a killer more savage than William Anderson. This book examines his prewar life, explains how he became a guerrilla, and then describes the war that he and his men waged against Union soldiers and defenseless civilians alike.

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Book SynopsisFew people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s. Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties.Trade ReviewMakes a significant contribution to the historiography of the 1850s.... Will be a necessary starting point from now on for anyone seeking to learn what 'bleeding Kansas' was about and why it mattered. - Journal of American History ""Well written, phenomenally well researched, and a wonderful addition to the scholarship of this important period.... Highly recommended for anyone interested in the crucial role of Kansas in shaping the sectional ideologies that would lead eventually to Civil War."" - North & South ""Etcheson breaks new ground and demonstrates that the violence of Bleeding Kansas forced free soilers to examine their own racial biases. The result was a significant ideological transformation.... Her book skillfully recreates this important egalitarian moment."" - Western Historical Quarterly ""A thoughtful and well-written addition to the scholarship of Kansas and the coming of the Civil War. The book deserves a wide readership."" - Missouri Historical Review ""A lively political history highly recommended for all libraries with collections in U.S. history."" - Choice

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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 SynopsisExamining the long-standing issue of the limits of political dissent in wartime, the book asks the critical historical question of what reasonable lengths a legitimate government can go to in order to protect itself and its citizens from threats, whether external or internal.

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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 SynopsisA narrative history of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference, the bipartisan, last-ditch effort to prevent the Civil War, an effort that nearly averted the carnage that followed.

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Book SynopsisA history of Catalonia and its centuries-long struggles for survival and, now, independenceTrade Review'Catalonia’s aspiration to cut loose from the Spanish state is often dismissed as the whim of a self-interested merchant class. The truth is more complicated. As Michael Eaude’s sharp, engrossing, and comprehensive historical narrative makes clear, the centuries-long push for Catalan independence is closely entwined with the peasant- and working-class struggle for social justice and democratic government' -- Sebastiaan Faber, author of ‘Exhuming Franco’'This well-written study takes us on a much-needed historical journey from below, eloquently capturing the rebellious traditions of Catalonia's assertive and proudly defiant popular classes from medieval times to today. By combining broad strokes and intricate detail, he establishes crucial connections between past and contemporary struggles to produce a vivid picture of the class war in a fractured and divided society that produced, in many respects, the most far-reaching social revolution in European history' -- Chris Ealham, author of 'Anarchism And The City’'This timely and impressive book not only dispels the myths and prejudices about the Catalan people's struggles, so prevalent in Spain and elsewhere, but demonstrates the constant intertwining of the battles for national rights with peasant and working-class revolt "from below". A thoroughly recommended read' -- Andy Durgan, historian and author of 'Voluntarios por la revolución’'Gives a voice to one of the most rebellious people in Europe whose insurgency reached a pinnacle in 1936 with working class revolution in Catalonia and continued through the ending of the Franco dictatorship through to today's fight to gain independence in the face of Spanish repression and nationalism. Michael does the Catalan people proud' -- Chris Bambery, author of 'Catalonia Reborn' and Public Point of Enquiry for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia'Gripping … Eaude provides an impressive and accessible roller-coaster history' -- Luke Stobart, JacobinTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: From Empire to Province 1. Rise and Fall of the Crown of Aragon 2. The Three Great Class Struggles of the Fifteenth Century 3. Revolution and Republic: 1641 4. Damn Them When You’ve Done: 1714 5. The Inanimate Corpse Part II: The Working Class Moves Centre-Stage 6. Rose of Fire 7. Free Men and Women 8. The Mass Strike: Europe Burning 9. The Giant Awakes 10. Cradle of the Spanish Revolution: 1936 11. Defeat of the Dictatorship 12. The Difficult Spirit: From Autonomy to Independence Endwords Timeline Glossary Bibliography Notes Index

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Book SynopsisA history of Catalonia and its centuries-long struggles for survival and, now, independenceTrade Review'Catalonia’s aspiration to cut loose from the Spanish state is often dismissed as the whim of a self-interested merchant class. The truth is more complicated. As Michael Eaude’s sharp, engrossing, and comprehensive historical narrative makes clear, the centuries-long push for Catalan independence is closely entwined with the peasant- and working-class struggle for social justice and democratic government' -- Sebastiaan Faber, author of ‘Exhuming Franco’'This well-written study takes us on a much-needed historical journey from below, eloquently capturing the rebellious traditions of Catalonia's assertive and proudly defiant popular classes from medieval times to today. By combining broad strokes and intricate detail, he establishes crucial connections between past and contemporary struggles to produce a vivid picture of the class war in a fractured and divided society that produced, in many respects, the most far-reaching social revolution in European history' -- Chris Ealham, author of 'Anarchism And The City’'This timely and impressive book not only dispels the myths and prejudices about the Catalan people's struggles, so prevalent in Spain and elsewhere, but demonstrates the constant intertwining of the battles for national rights with peasant and working-class revolt "from below". A thoroughly recommended read' -- Andy Durgan, historian and author of 'Voluntarios por la revolución’'Gives a voice to one of the most rebellious people in Europe whose insurgency reached a pinnacle in 1936 with working class revolution in Catalonia and continued through the ending of the Franco dictatorship through to today's fight to gain independence in the face of Spanish repression and nationalism. Michael does the Catalan people proud' -- Chris Bambery, author of 'Catalonia Reborn' and Public Point of Enquiry for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia'Gripping … Eaude provides an impressive and accessible roller-coaster history' -- Luke Stobart, JacobinTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: From Empire to Province 1. Rise and Fall of the Crown of Aragon 2. The Three Great Class Struggles of the Fifteenth Century 3. Revolution and Republic: 1641 4. Damn Them When You’ve Done: 1714 5. The Inanimate Corpse Part II: The Working Class Moves Centre-Stage 6. Rose of Fire 7. Free Men and Women 8. The Mass Strike: Europe Burning 9. The Giant Awakes 10. Cradle of the Spanish Revolution: 1936 11. Defeat of the Dictatorship 12. The Difficult Spirit: From Autonomy to Independence Endwords Timeline Glossary Bibliography Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe Civil War is an event of great cultural significance, impacting upon American literature, film, music, electronic media, the marketplace and public performance. This book takes an innovative approach to this great event in American history, exploring its cultural origins and enduring cultural legacy. It focuses upon the place of the Civil War across the broad sweep of American cultural forms and practices and reveals important links between historical events and contemporary culture.The first chapter introduces a discussion of ante-bellum culture and the part cultural forces played in the sectional crisis that exploded into full-blown war in 1861. Subsequent chapters focus on particular themes, appropriations, interpretations and manifestations of the War as they have appeared in American culture.Trade ReviewKaufman moves elegantly and expertly from the actual events of the Civil War to its representation in all kinds of modern popular culture, from the labels of whisky bottles (one of which adorns his cover) to southern rock music, from bikinis to Playmobil figures... this is an exciting, wide-ranging and instructive book. -- Marion Gibson, University of Exeter European Journal of American Culture Will Kaufman's lively introduction to the Civil War's continuing culture wars is therefore a timely publication for those wondering why the Civil War still resonates in american culture... a vibrant and engaging study that conveys an enthusiasm for the subject that students, one hopes, will find infectious. -- Susan-Mary Grant, Newcastle University Journal of American Studies Some of the more hidden gems of Civil War culture, and thus keep the reader enthralled as to what new curiosities he will uncover next... an entertaining and revealing perspective on the ethos of the American Civil War. -- Tracy Rex, University of Wales American Studies Today An interesting, well-nuanced study of the imprints that the Civil war has made and continues to make on US culture. -- T. Marwell-Long, University of California State Journal of American Studies Required reading for anyone interested in topic of race and/or culture in the U.S. -- Gerri Gribi, Curator Journal of American Studies An excellent overview for scholars and advanced students alike ... an excellent reference guide. -- H-CivWar - Jim Flook, University of Florida H-Net Kaufman moves elegantly and expertly from the actual events of the Civil War to its representation in all kinds of modern popular culture, from the labels of whisky bottles (one of which adorns his cover) to southern rock music, from bikinis to Playmobil figures... this is an exciting, wide-ranging and instructive book. Will Kaufman's lively introduction to the Civil War's continuing culture wars is therefore a timely publication for those wondering why the Civil War still resonates in american culture... a vibrant and engaging study that conveys an enthusiasm for the subject that students, one hopes, will find infectious. Some of the more hidden gems of Civil War culture, and thus keep the reader enthralled as to what new curiosities he will uncover next... an entertaining and revealing perspective on the ethos of the American Civil War. An interesting, well-nuanced study of the imprints that the Civil war has made and continues to make on US culture. Required reading for anyone interested in topic of race and/or culture in the U.S. An excellent overview for scholars and advanced students alike ... an excellent reference guide.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Antebellum Groundwork; 2. Reunion and Resistance; 3. Martyrdom and Memory; 4. Abe Lincoln's Mixed Reviews; 5. Rebels, Inc.; 6. The Regendered Civil War; 7. The Virtual Civil War; 8. The Transnational Civil War; Conclusion: 'History is My Starting Point'; Sources and Further Reading.

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Book SynopsisThe most extensive and detailed analysis of the reporting of the Spanish Civil War ever undertaken.Trade ReviewBRITISH NEWS MEDIA AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE David Deacon, 2008 Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press Viii 196 pp., ISBN 978-0-7486-2748-6 (hbk GBP60.00) The public representation of the Spanish Civil War has, unsurprisingly, received considerable attention from scholars in recent years. The conflict attracted, after all, an impressive array of talented writers, journalists and photographers, from Ernest Hemmingway and George Orwell to Martha Gellhorn and Robert Capa; it prompted numerous artistic responses, including Picasso's masterpiece Guernica. It seemed, both at the time and in retrospect, a struggle with huge significance not just for the future of Spain, but for the future of the world: a battle of rival ideologies which could destabilize the balance of power in Europe and pave the way for a global war. Despite this ongoing interest, there has not been a comprehensive survey of the British media's coverage of the events in Spain. David Deacon's new volume fills this gap with great authority. It focuses not just on the content of the journalism but the conditions under which it was produced and the editorial pressures that shaped its presentation. It demonstrates that the British press was more uncertain and confused in its response to the civil war than has often been assumed; several newspapers shifted their positions significantly, and, in particular, reservations about Franco grew over time. Deacon suggests that, on balance, the Republican government won the media war, but ultimately 'the scale of its victory was insufficient' (171): it was not able to stir British opinion into demanding firmer action in its support, and hobbled by the Non-Intervention pact, it eventually succumbed to military defeat. The book's structure enables the reader to follow the complex journey that the 'news from Spain' took on its way to breakfast tables around Britain. The first substantive chapter compares the initially 'rigid and aggressive news management' of the Nationalists with the more 'permissive' approach of the Republicans (40); the greater freedom allowed to journalists, coupled with a more advanced communications infrastructure, encouraged more detailed and often more sympathetic coverage of Republican activities. If killings in Republican zones in the early months of the war were over-reported, the relative mobility of journalists enabled The Times' George Steer, among others, to be in place to witness the devastation at Guernica and to identify the perpetrators coverage which did incalculable damage to the Nationalists' reputation. Two further chapters on the experiences of journalists on the front lines reinforce the point that the views of the Anglo-American press contingent were noticeably inclined towards the Republican cause although if there was a widespread desire to support the defence of democracy, the vast majority of correspondents were deeply suspicious of the more revolutionary groupings working alongside the moderate government forces. Deacon also shows how female reporters, lacking the status of their male counterparts, were generally left to cover the impact of the warfare on ordinary citizens; he notes that their accounts were often given 'considerable prominence' in British newspapers (69), but he does not provide sufficient evidence to Media History, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2010 ISSN 1368-8804 print/1469-9729 online/10/020253 13 DOI: 10.1080/13688801003656355 Downloaded By: [Loughborough University] At: 13:50 8 April 2010 sustain his argument that this eyewitness testimony of civilian resolution in the facing of bombardment served to weaken the 'air fear' gripping Europe in the 1930s. But if journalists in Spain tended to favour the Republican position, there were significant countervailing pressures in Britain. In a chapter which draws extensively on the National Archives and the editorial archives of The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the BBC, Deacon demonstrates the ways in which the government largely through the News Department of the Foreign Office sought to mould media debate and maintain support for the policy of Non-Intervention. The British National Government, the author shows, had a 'barely concealed political and ideological antipathy to the Republic' (110), and consistently sought to avoid antagonizing the Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. An interesting case study of Frederick Voight, the Diplomatic Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, indicates the effectiveness of the Foreign Office's 'management' of the press. Voight's analysis of the civil war he spent relatively little time in Spain itself was uncomfortably similar to that of the British government's, even though he worked for a paper overtly backing the Republicans. Deacon builds a persuasive case that Voight's divergence from his paper's line was due to his integration into the Foreign Office's diplomatic lobby system. The BBC was placed under even more pressure: as early as March 1937, John Reith, the Director-General, recorded that the Foreign Office 'would be glad' if the BBC became 'sufficiently obviously pro-Insurgent to convince Franco' that it, and by extension the government, were 'not Anti-Franco' (96). Reith had few qualms about adopting this line. Deacon also suggests that commercial interests may have encouraged some proprietors to be receptive to the government's desire to 'cool and constrain' media debate about the international situation (110), although decisive evidence for this is, as ever, hard to find. It is not easy to disentangle genuinely held political views from commercial motives: what is clear, however, is the difficulty, in this climate of opinion, of sustaining the case for decisive British intervention on the side of the Republicans. The most impressive and longest chapter is devoted to the actual content of the press coverage of the civil war. Based on a survey of over 10,000 news and commentary items taken from three sample months, this analysis is a model of precision. Graphs, tables and maps are provided to summarize changing levels of coverage, the location of journalists, the sources used in reporting, the labels employed to describe the two sides, and, most importantly of all, the interpretive categories and editorial policies of each paper. Deacon provides a wealth of valuable information that will be useful to anyone interested in foreign affairs journalism: it is difficult to imagine being provided with a fuller or more nuanced picture of the British press's response to the conflict. Amidst this complexity, some clear patterns can be identified, most notably that over time 'Nationalist sins gained prominence over Republican failings and, by the end, even those inclined to oppose the Republic ... demonstrated some compassion for Republican suffering and admiration for their resistance' (146). By the end of the war, there were few voices praising Franco with any enthusiasm. After this analytical tour de force, the final substantive chapter on 'other avenues of Spanish news' namely, newsreels, photography and the weekly press feels rather lightweight, based as it is on secondary literature, but it does at least ensure a rounded coverage which incorporates all of the main media forms of the 1930s. 254 BOOK REVIEWS Downloaded By: [Loughborough University] At: 13:50 8 April 2010 Inevitably, there are some minor quibbles. The author waits until the brief concluding chapter to introduce a model of a 'propaganda state' to describe the activities of the British government: 'The Propaganda State of the 1930s,' he writes, 'recognised the need to legitimise its policies but felt little need to legitimise itself' (178). This is a suggestive avenue to explore, but it would have been more helpful to signpost it earlier to allow the reader the opportunity to assess its worth. Despite the flurry of tables and statistics summarizing the press coverage, moreover, the reader does not get much of a flavour of the actual language and tone of the news reporting and commentary beyond the headlines. Overall, though, this is a very significant addition to the literature on interwar journalism, and it stands as a shining example of methodological rigour in the field of media history. Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield # 2010, Adrian Bingham -- Adrian Bingham Media History 'This book is a deeply researched media history shaped by the eye of a media sociologist. In a lucid and thoughtful account, David Deacon has explored the continuities between past and present. The media coverage of the Spanish civil war still holds lessons for analysing communications in our own war-torn times.' -- Professor Philip Schlesinger, University of Glasgow 'David Deacon is to be congratulated for this splendid study of British news media reporting of the Spanish Civil War, which combines the historian's concern with detailed analysis of primary and archival sources with the broader sweep of journalism theory, to create a fascinating, scholarly but controversial mix. British News Media and the Spanish Civil War is destined to become a Classic within the literature of journalism studies. It establishes a demanding new benchmark of excellence for the flurry of recent studies of war reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict regions. Deacon's eloquent but forensic discussion of the attitudes and experiences of foreign correspondents, the contribution of women correspondents and photojournalists, the propaganda activities of the Republican and nationalist protagonists, as well as the news management activities of the British Government, explains and unravels the various factors which shaped the essentially complex and partisan character of British press coverage of the Spanish Civil War. Deacon's suggestion that journalism may assist historical understanding but that its key concern is 'to influence social and political events', along with his challenge to contemporary ideas concerning the 'mediatization' of politics and conflict, makes this is a highly controversial as well as deeply scholarly book.' -- Bob Franklin, Cardiff University This book provides an extensive and detailed analysis of the reporting of the conflict, examining the personalities, routines, pressures and structures that shaped news coverage of the war in Britain as it unfolded. The book combines a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on the role of the news media in the conflict, with a vast amount of new evidence, gleaned from the author's detailed investigations in a range of official and media archives. Viewfinder In this brilliant, concise and original study of British and American news media's reporting of the Spanish civil war, David Deacon reveals the extraordinarily rich tapestry of journalistic endeavour which Orwell's quip obscures. Deacon explores the subject thematically and with wonderful imaginative flair. -- Richard Lance Keeble, University of Lincoln European Journal of Communication David Deaon has written a book that is well-researched, clear, provocative and stimulating... a valuable contribution to the burgeoning historiogrpahy of Britain and the Spanish Civil War as well as an insightful media history that throws light on both the contemporary state of British media and its modern development. -- Lewis H. Mates Contemporary British History ...This is a very significant addition to the literature on interwar journalism, and it stands as a shining example of methodological rigour in the field of media history. -- Adrian Bingham Media History As well as presenting detailed analysis of British newspapers, Deacon's work samples the full spectrum of British media, effectively blending hard-edged media analysis with detailed cultural history! Deacon's book convincingly presents the 1930s as central to the formation of distinctly modern political practices and sensibilities. -- Ben Harker, University of Salford Socialist History BRITISH NEWS MEDIA AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE David Deacon, 2008 Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press Viii 196 pp., ISBN 978-0-7486-2748-6 (hbk GBP60.00) The public representation of the Spanish Civil War has, unsurprisingly, received considerable attention from scholars in recent years. The conflict attracted, after all, an impressive array of talented writers, journalists and photographers, from Ernest Hemmingway and George Orwell to Martha Gellhorn and Robert Capa; it prompted numerous artistic responses, including Picasso's masterpiece Guernica. It seemed, both at the time and in retrospect, a struggle with huge significance not just for the future of Spain, but for the future of the world: a battle of rival ideologies which could destabilize the balance of power in Europe and pave the way for a global war. Despite this ongoing interest, there has not been a comprehensive survey of the British media's coverage of the events in Spain. David Deacon's new volume fills this gap with great authority. It focuses not just on the content of the journalism but the conditions under which it was produced and the editorial pressures that shaped its presentation. It demonstrates that the British press was more uncertain and confused in its response to the civil war than has often been assumed; several newspapers shifted their positions significantly, and, in particular, reservations about Franco grew over time. Deacon suggests that, on balance, the Republican government won the media war, but ultimately 'the scale of its victory was insufficient' (171): it was not able to stir British opinion into demanding firmer action in its support, and hobbled by the Non-Intervention pact, it eventually succumbed to military defeat. The book's structure enables the reader to follow the complex journey that the 'news from Spain' took on its way to breakfast tables around Britain. The first substantive chapter compares the initially 'rigid and aggressive news management' of the Nationalists with the more 'permissive' approach of the Republicans (40); the greater freedom allowed to journalists, coupled with a more advanced communications infrastructure, encouraged more detailed and often more sympathetic coverage of Republican activities. If killings in Republican zones in the early months of the war were over-reported, the relative mobility of journalists enabled The Times' George Steer, among others, to be in place to witness the devastation at Guernica and to identify the perpetrators coverage which did incalculable damage to the Nationalists' reputation. Two further chapters on the experiences of journalists on the front lines reinforce the point that the views of the Anglo-American press contingent were noticeably inclined towards the Republican cause although if there was a widespread desire to support the defence of democracy, the vast majority of correspondents were deeply suspicious of the more revolutionary groupings working alongside the moderate government forces. Deacon also shows how female reporters, lacking the status of their male counterparts, were generally left to cover the impact of the warfare on ordinary citizens; he notes that their accounts were often given 'considerable prominence' in British newspapers (69), but he does not provide sufficient evidence to Media History, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2010 ISSN 1368-8804 print/1469-9729 online/10/020253 13 DOI: 10.1080/13688801003656355 Downloaded By: [Loughborough University] At: 13:50 8 April 2010 sustain his argument that this eyewitness testimony of civilian resolution in the facing of bombardment served to weaken the 'air fear' gripping Europe in the 1930s. But if journalists in Spain tended to favour the Republican position, there were significant countervailing pressures in Britain. In a chapter which draws extensively on the National Archives and the editorial archives of The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the BBC, Deacon demonstrates the ways in which the government largely through the News Department of the Foreign Office sought to mould media debate and maintain support for the policy of Non-Intervention. The British National Government, the author shows, had a 'barely concealed political and ideological antipathy to the Republic' (110), and consistently sought to avoid antagonizing the Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. An interesting case study of Frederick Voight, the Diplomatic Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, indicates the effectiveness of the Foreign Office's 'management' of the press. Voight's analysis of the civil war he spent relatively little time in Spain itself was uncomfortably similar to that of the British government's, even though he worked for a paper overtly backing the Republicans. Deacon builds a persuasive case that Voight's divergence from his paper's line was due to his integration into the Foreign Office's diplomatic lobby system. The BBC was placed under even more pressure: as early as March 1937, John Reith, the Director-General, recorded that the Foreign Office 'would be glad' if the BBC became 'sufficiently obviously pro-Insurgent to convince Franco' that it, and by extension the government, were 'not Anti-Franco' (96). Reith had few qualms about adopting this line. Deacon also suggests that commercial interests may have encouraged some proprietors to be receptive to the government's desire to 'cool and constrain' media debate about the international situation (110), although decisive evidence for this is, as ever, hard to find. It is not easy to disentangle genuinely held political views from commercial motives: what is clear, however, is the difficulty, in this climate of opinion, of sustaining the case for decisive British intervention on the side of the Republicans. The most impressive and longest chapter is devoted to the actual content of the press coverage of the civil war. Based on a survey of over 10,000 news and commentary items taken from three sample months, this analysis is a model of precision. Graphs, tables and maps are provided to summarize changing levels of coverage, the location of journalists, the sources used in reporting, the labels employed to describe the two sides, and, most importantly of all, the interpretive categories and editorial policies of each paper. Deacon provides a wealth of valuable information that will be useful to anyone interested in foreign affairs journalism: it is difficult to imagine being provided with a fuller or more nuanced picture of the British press's response to the conflict. Amidst this complexity, some clear patterns can be identified, most notably that over time 'Nationalist sins gained prominence over Republican failings and, by the end, even those inclined to oppose the Republic ... demonstrated some compassion for Republican suffering and admiration for their resistance' (146). By the end of the war, there were few voices praising Franco with any enthusiasm. After this analytical tour de force, the final substantive chapter on 'other avenues of Spanish news' namely, newsreels, photography and the weekly press feels rather lightweight, based as it is on secondary literature, but it does at least ensure a rounded coverage which incorporates all of the main media forms of the 1930s. 254 BOOK REVIEWS Downloaded By: [Loughborough University] At: 13:50 8 April 2010 Inevitably, there are some minor quibbles. The author waits until the brief concluding chapter to introduce a model of a 'propaganda state' to describe the activities of the British government: 'The Propaganda State of the 1930s,' he writes, 'recognised the need to legitimise its policies but felt little need to legitimise itself' (178). This is a suggestive avenue to explore, but it would have been more helpful to signpost it earlier to allow the reader the opportunity to assess its worth. Despite the flurry of tables and statistics summarizing the press coverage, moreover, the reader does not get much of a flavour of the actual language and tone of the news reporting and commentary beyond the headlines. Overall, though, this is a very significant addition to the literature on interwar journalism, and it stands as a shining example of methodological rigour in the field of media history. Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield # 2010, Adrian Bingham 'This book is a deeply researched media history shaped by the eye of a media sociologist. In a lucid and thoughtful account, David Deacon has explored the continuities between past and present. The media coverage of the Spanish civil war still holds lessons for analysing communications in our own war-torn times.' 'David Deacon is to be congratulated for this splendid study of British news media reporting of the Spanish Civil War, which combines the historian's concern with detailed analysis of primary and archival sources with the broader sweep of journalism theory, to create a fascinating, scholarly but controversial mix. British News Media and the Spanish Civil War is destined to become a Classic within the literature of journalism studies. It establishes a demanding new benchmark of excellence for the flurry of recent studies of war reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict regions. Deacon's eloquent but forensic discussion of the attitudes and experiences of foreign correspondents, the contribution of women correspondents and photojournalists, the propaganda activities of the Republican and nationalist protagonists, as well as the news management activities of the British Government, explains and unravels the various factors which shaped the essentially complex and partisan character of British press coverage of the Spanish Civil War. Deacon's suggestion that journalism may assist historical understanding but that its key concern is 'to influence social and political events', along with his challenge to contemporary ideas concerning the 'mediatization' of politics and conflict, makes this is a highly controversial as well as deeply scholarly book.' This book provides an extensive and detailed analysis of the reporting of the conflict, examining the personalities, routines, pressures and structures that shaped news coverage of the war in Britain as it unfolded. The book combines a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on the role of the news media in the conflict, with a vast amount of new evidence, gleaned from the author's detailed investigations in a range of official and media archives. In this brilliant, concise and original study of British and American news media's reporting of the Spanish civil war, David Deacon reveals the extraordinarily rich tapestry of journalistic endeavour which Orwell's quip obscures. Deacon explores the subject thematically and with wonderful imaginative flair. David Deaon has written a book that is well-researched, clear, provocative and stimulating... a valuable contribution to the burgeoning historiogrpahy of Britain and the Spanish Civil War as well as an insightful media history that throws light on both the contemporary state of British media and its modern development. ...This is a very significant addition to the literature on interwar journalism, and it stands as a shining example of methodological rigour in the field of media history. As well as presenting detailed analysis of British newspapers, Deacon's work samples the full spectrum of British media, effectively blending hard-edged media analysis with detailed cultural history! Deacon's book convincingly presents the 1930s as central to the formation of distinctly modern political practices and sensibilities.Table of Contents1. An emblematic editorial; 2. The Ground Rules: Republican and Nationalist International News Management; 3. Eye-Witnesses and 'I' witnesses: Journalists in Spain; 4. 'The Aliveness of Speaking Faces': Women Correspondents in the Spanish Civil War; 5. Rear-guard Reactions: Governmental and Commercial influence on Spanish Civil War Reporting in Britain; 6. Ominous and Indifferent? British Press Coverage of the Spanish Civil War; 7. Other Avenues of Spanish News; 8. Journalists, Spain and the Propaganda State.

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Book SynopsisUsing known and new evidence, John Fox provides the first biography of this extraordinary woman, a forgotten key player in the English Civil War.

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