Description
Book SynopsisThe origins and evolution of the conflict between North and South can be traced back to the early years of the American Republic, as Stephen Hyslop demonstrates in this volume, an exploration of how the incipient fissure between the Union’s initial slave states and free states lengthened and deepened as the nation advanced westward.
Trade Review“
Building a House Divided is a beautifully written study of the scheming, calculations, and missteps of presidents, politicians, and everyday people that led to one of the most defining wars in American history.”— Andrew Torget, author of
Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850“Most people look at the history of the early United States backwards from Fort Sumter and ask how it all could have happened. Stephen J. Hyslop looks forward from the very earliest moments of the republic and clearly explains how slavery became entwined with westward expansion—deliberately or inadvertently—and how it led to disunion and civil war.”—Christopher Childers, author of
The Failure of Popular Sovereignty: Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Radicalization of Southern Politics“This engrossing book provides a meticulous account—engaging, clear, polished, and sure-handed throughout—of the politics, diplomacy, and geography that simultaneously allowed the United States to become a continental nation by 1850 and triggered the South’s secession from the Union in 1860–1861 and the bloody Civil War that followed.”—Robert E. May, author of
Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America
