Description
Book SynopsisBrings together two subjects in American history: the story of the struggle to end slavery that reached a violent climax in the Civil War, and the story of the westward expansion of the US. This work embraces East and West, as well as North and South, as the US observes the 2015 sesquicentennial commemoration of the end of the Civil War.
Trade Review"A wide-ranging, valuable addition to the literature on the American West that reveals the truly continental nature of one of America's most defining struggles." Publishers Weekly "A signal contribution to the understanding of some central themes in US history ... An important model for a new, broader use of material objects in understanding the country's past." -- D. Steeples CHOICE
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction - Virginia Scharff 1. The Price of Slavery across Empire: Family, Community, and Loss in Texas - Brenda E. Stevenson 2. The Fremonts: Agents of Empire, Legends of Liberty - John Mack Faragher 3. Beecher's Bibles and Broadswords: Paving the Way for the Civil War in the West, 1854--1859 - Jonathan Earle 4. Liberty, Empire, and Civil War in the American West - Durwood Ball 5. When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy in the Civil War - Kent Blansett 6. On the Edge of Empires, Republics, and Identities: De la Guerra's Sword of the War and the California Native Cavalry - Daniel Lynch 7. John Gast's American Progress: Using Manifest Destiny to Forget the Civil War and Reconstruction - Adam Arenson 8. Empire and Liberty in the Middle of Nowhere - Virginia Scharff 9. The Not-So-Free Labor in the American Southwest - Maria E. Montoya 10. After Antietam: Memory and Memorabilia in the Far West - William Deverell 11. "You Brought History Alive for Us": Reflections on the Lives of Nineteenth-Century Dine Women - Jennifer Denetdale List of Contributors Index
