Overview

The American Civil War (1861-65) remains a searing event in the collective consciousness of the United States. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history, claiming the lives of at least 600,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians and slaves. The Civil War was also one of the world's first truly industrial conflicts, involving railroads, the telegraph, steamships and mass-manufactured weaponry. The eventual victory of the Union over the Confederacy rang the death-knell for American slavery, and set the USA on the path to becoming a truly world power. Paul Christopher Anderson shows how and why the conflict remains the nation's defining moment, arguing that it was above all a struggle for power and political supremacy but was also a struggle for the idea of America. Melding social, cultural and military history, the author explores iconic battles like Shiloh, Chickamauga, Antietam and Gettysburg, as well as the bitterly contesting forces underlying them and the myth-making that came to define them in aftermath. He shows that while both sides began the war in order to preserve - the integrity of the American state in the case of the Union, the integrity of a culture, a value system, and as slave society in the case of the Confederacy - it allowed the American South to define a regional identity that has survived into modern times.

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9781780765976

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Concisely introducing political, economic, and social matters, the author reduces battle detail in favor of analysis and enhances thematic interpretation. In a very real sense Anderson brings the story into the new century, making it relevant to today ... Recommended for all libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels. - CHOICE Displaying a splendid gift for compressing facts without altering truths, Paul Anderson has produced a short history of the American Civil War that is long on quality and understanding. Lively, succinct, and perceptive, it is filled with sound, balanced judgments that make rare sense of a sprawling, complex, and crucial era in American history. A marvelous introduction to the war. --Daniel E. Sutherland, University of Arkansas

Displaying a splendid gift for compressing facts without altering truths, Paul Anderson has produced a short history of the American Civil War that is long on quality and understanding. Lively, succinct, and perceptive, it is filled with sound, balanced judgments that make rare sense of a sprawling, complex, and crucial era in American history. A marvelous introduction to the war. --Daniel E. Sutherland, University of Arkansas

Author Information

Paul Christopher Anderson is University Historian and Associate Professor of History at Clemson University, USA. He is the author of Blood Image: Turner Ashby in the Civil War and the Southern Mind (2002).

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