The war that forged a nation : why the Civil War still matters

Resource Information

The work The war that forged a nation : why the Civil War still matters represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Grosse Pointe Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The war that forged a nation : why the Civil War still matters

Title remainder

why the Civil War still matters

Statement of responsibility

James McPherson

Creator

• McPherson, James M

Subject

• HISTORY / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
• HISTORY / United States / General
• National characteristics, American -- History
• Social change -- United States -- History
• HISTORY / United States / 19th Century
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Psychological aspects
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Social aspects
• War and society -- United States -- History
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Influence

Language

eng

Summary

"In The Long Shadow of War, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War retains such a hold on our national psyche and identity. Though the drama and tragedy of the subject, from the war's scope and size--an estimated death toll of 750,000, far more than all the rest of the country's wars combined--to the nearly mythical individuals involved--Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson--help explain why the Civil War remains so popular among historians, it does not entirely explain why the war still matters to us today. Through twelve essays, McPherson dissects this question, exploring the war's impact across many dimensions of American life. The essays consider variously the war's causes and consequences; the morality and cost of the war in comparative context; the naval war; slavery and its abolition; and Abraham Lincoln as emancipator, political leader, and commander in chief, among many other topics. Ultimately, McPherson illuminates the impossibility of understanding the issues of our own time unless we first understand their roots in the era of the Civil War: slavery and its abolition; the conflict between the North and South; the struggle between state sovereignty and the federal government; the role of government in social change-these issues, McPherson shows, are as salient and controversial today as they were in the 1860s. Thoughtful, provocative, and authoritative, The Long Shadow of War looks anew at the reasons America's civil war has remained a subject of intense interest for the past century and a half, and affirms the enduring relevance of the conflict for America today"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

973.7/1

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography