America Aflame How the Civil War Created a Nation

by Goldfield, David

• ISBN13: 9781608193905
• ISBN10: 160819390X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-04
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Press

Summary

In this spellbinding history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where other scholars have seen the conflict as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield paints it as America's greatest failure: a breakdown of society caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the world of politics. The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not: It made the United States one nation and eliminated the divisive force of slavery. The victorious North moved ahead, a land of innovation and industry. Religion was supplanted by a gospel of economic and scientific progress, and the South was left behind. The "fiery trial" of war transformed our countrya conflagration captured in vivid detail in America Aflame.

Author Biography

David Goldfield is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His books include Still Fighting the Civil War, Southern Histories: Black White, and Southern; and Promised Land.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Nation Reborn	p. 1
Crusades	p. 17
Empire	p. 42
Revolutions	p. 59
Railroaded	p. 86
Blood on the Plains	p. 105
Revival	p. 128
The Boatman	p. 158
The Tug Comes	p. 180
Just Causes	p. 205
Shiloh Awakening	p. 224
Born in a Day	p. 245
Blood and Transcendence	p. 268
A New Nation	p. 296
War Is Cruelty	p. 318
One Nation, Indivisible	p. 344
The Age of Reason	p. 370
Aspirations	p. 397
A Golden Moment	p. 417
The Golden Spike	p. 439
Political Science	p. 456
Let It Be	p. 483
Centennial	p. 506
Acknowledgments	p. 535
Notes	p. 539
Bibliography	p. 591
Index	p. 617
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.