America aflame : how the Civil War created a nation /

Goldfield, David R., 1944-

America aflame : how the Civil War created a nation / How the Civil War created a nation David Goldfield. - 1st U.S. ed. - New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2011. - 632 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [591]-615) and index.

Crusades -- Empire -- Revolutions -- Railroaded -- Blood on the Plains -- Revival -- The boatman -- The tug comes -- Just causes -- Shiloh awakening -- Born in a day -- Blood and transcendence -- A new nation -- War is cruelty -- One nation, indivisible -- The age of reason -- Aspirations -- A golden moment -- The golden spike -- Political science -- Let it be -- Centennial.

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

1596917024 (hbk.) 9781596917026 (hbk.)

2010025241


National characteristics, American.


United States--History--Campaigns.--Civil War, 1861-1865
United States--History--Causes.--Civil War, 1861-1865
United States--History--Influence.--Civil War, 1861-1865
United States--History--Social aspects.--Civil War, 1861-1865

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