The American Civil War : explorations and reconsiderations

The American Civil War: Explorations and Reconsiderations offers a timely and useful guide to this vast topic for a new generation of students and general readers alike.

This volume provides a broad-ranging assessment of the causes, complexities, and consequences of America's most destruction conflict to date.

What sets The American Civil War: Explorations and Reconsiderations apart from other works on the Civil War is the originality of approach to each particular topic.

This is very much a volume that shows the reader how, and in what ways, differing interpretations of the war have arisen, and explains clearly why the American Civil War remains a subject of enduring interest in both America and globally.

The American Civil War moves beyond traditional subjects and includes pathbreaking chapters on the Constitution and the Civil War; on the Confederate debate on emancipation; on the role of the war in the creation of American national identity; and on the development, and strength, of the Union prior to 1861.Divided into four sections:- the Political Front- the Military Front- the Race Front- the Ideological Front -The American Civil War offers alternative perspectives on the most decisive areas of conflict in this war, both on and beyond the battlefield: between North and South, black and white, and among historians and interpreters of the Civil War era.

It examines such topics as southern secession, the contrasting leadership styles of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the nature of combat during the Civil War and the specific difficulties faced by African-Americans both during the conflict and after, ending with a consideration of the effect of the war on American politics, economics, and self-image as a nation.The Introduction to the volume, by James M.

McPherson (author of Battle Cry of Freedom) highlights why the transatlantic perspective has been, and continues to be, so important to the study of the American Civil War.

This volume both adds to our understanding of the issues involved in the war, and points the way forward to a future in which America's Civil War past will continue to play a decisive part.