At the precipice: Americans North and South during the secession crisis (1st edition.)

Bowman explores the different ways in which Americans, North and South, black and white, understood their interests, rights, and honour during the secession period.

He examines the lives and thoughts of key figures, what less famous men and women in both sections thought about themselves and the worlds in which they lived, and how their thoughts informed their actions at this time.

Both sides valued the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the US, yet they interpreted those sacred documents in markedly different ways and held very different notions of what constituted 'American' values.