Civil War America: Making a Nation, 1848-1877

The turbulent middle decades of the nineteenth century constituted the critical period in American nation building. Civil War America shows that the era's combination of civil war and economic growth laid the foundation for the United States' emergence as a Great Power in the early twentieth century. Six hundred and twenty thousand men died in the Civil War - the United States' bloodiest single conflict which transformed a troubled slaveholding republic into the world's most advanced capitalist democracy. Civil War America is a compelling history of the origins of the Civil War as well as the events which brought about the destruction of the southern Confederacy, the triumph of the Union and the emancipation of four million black slaves. It also probes the impressive material development and westward expansion of the United States - grand national achievements which came at significant cost not only to many ordinary Americans but also to the indigenous inhabitants of the land, the Plains Indians. Civil War America is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the influence which the United States exerts in the modern world, and is the most sweeping and dramatic account of the American Civil War era on the market today.Robert Cook is a Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Sheffield.