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America aflame : how the Civil War created a nation / David Goldfield.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2011.Edition: 1st U.S. edDescription: 632 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cmISBN:
  • 1596917024 (hbk.)
  • 9781596917026 (hbk.)
Other title:
  • How the Civil War created a nation
Subject(s):
Contents:
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.
Summary: 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.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 973.711 G618 Available 33111006348045
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 GreatAwakening 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: It made the United States one nation and eliminated slavery as a divisive force in the Union. The victorious North became synonymous with America as a land of innovation and industrialization, whose teeming cities offered squalor and opportunity in equal measure. Religion was supplanted by science and a gospel of progress, and the South was left behind. Goldfield's panoramic narrative, sweeping from the 1840s to the end of Reconstruction, is studded with memorable details and luminaries such as HarrietBeecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman. There are lesser known yet equally compelling characters, too, including Carl Schurz-a German immigrant, warhero, and postwar reformer-and Alexander Stephens, the urbane and intellectual vice president of the Confederacy. America Aflame is a vivid portrait of the "fiery trial"that transformed the country we live in. David Goldfield is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is the author of many works on Southern history, including Still Fighting the Civil War ; Black, White, and Southern ; and Promised Land.

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.

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