Product Description

Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War.
James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. From there it moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering by each side, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory.
The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict. The South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war, slavery, and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict.
This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2354 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 952 pages

Amazon.com
Published in 1988 to universal acclaim, this single-volume treatment of the Civil War quickly became recognized as the new standard in its field. James M. McPherson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, impressively combines a brisk writing style with an admirable thoroughness. He covers the military aspects of the war in all of the necessary detail, and also provides a helpful framework describing the complex economic, political, and social forces behind the conflict. Perhaps more than any other book, this one belongs on the bookshelf of every Civil War buff.

From Publishers Weekly
Likely to become the standard one-volume history of our Civil War, this vivifies, with palpable immediacy, scholarly acumen and interpretive skill, events foreshadowing the conflict, the war itself and its basic issue: slavery. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The best one-volume treatment of [the Civil War era] I have ever come across. It may actually be the best ever published.... I was swept away, feeling as if I had never heard the saga before.... Omitting nothing important, whether military, political, or economic, he yet manages to make everything he touches drive the narrative forward. This is historical writing of the highest order."--Hugh Brogan, New York Times Book Review
"The finest single volume on the war and its background."--The Washington Post Book World
"Deftly coordinated, gracefully composed, charitably argued and suspensefully paid out, McPherson's book is just the compass of the tumultuous middle years of the 19th century it was intended to be, and as narrative history it is surpassing. Bright with details and fresh quotations, solid with carefully-arrived-at conclusions, it must surely be, of the 50,000 books written on the Civil War, the finest compression of that national paroxysm ever fitted between two covers."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Immediately takes its place as the best one-volume history of the coming of the American Civil War and the war itself. It is a superb narrative history, elegantly written.--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Matchless.... The book's political and economic discussions are as engrossing as the descriptions of military campaigns and personalities."--Library Journal
"McPherson cements his reputation as one of the finest Civil War historians....Should become a standard general history of the Civil War period--it's one that will stand up for years to come."--Kirkus Reviews
"Robust, glittering history."--Booklist

Customer Reviews

Kindle Edition has problems
This review is purely as to the flaws of the Kindle transfer -- the book itself is a masterpiece I've reread with pleasure on paper over the years. Unfortunately the transfer is a rough scanned-PDF type that is MUCH harder to read than other Kindle books. Caveat Emptor.

Excellent
This book is full of infomation about the times of the Civil War. Very informative about why things happened. Excellent.

Marred by political correctness
Yes, this is an excellent political history. But it is marred by political correctness. The culture of American Indians was "vital," we learn, and all Indians are treated strictly as victims. Southerners are almost without exception villainous. Little is said of Lincoln's view of the alleged inferiority of blacks before 1860. And there is no mention of Nat Turner!

Perhaps the author had no choice, given the nature of academia today. I continue to prefer earlier versions of American history, without the PC.