Product Description

This best-selling title, designed to be either the primary anthology or textbook for the course, covers the Civil War's entire chronological span with a series of documents and essays.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62684 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
Michael Perman received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation adviser was John Hope Franklin. He has taught at Ohio State University, Manchester University in England, and the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is currently professor of history and research professor in the humanities. His main publications include REUNION WITHOUT COMPROMISE: THE SOUTH AND RECONSTRUCTION, 1865-1868 (1973); THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION: SOUTHERN POLITICS, 1869-1879 (1984); and EMANCIPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION, 1862-1879 (1987). He has also edited two volumes of readings in American history, PERSPECTIVES ON THE AMERICAN PAST and THE COMING OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Perman has won three book awards for THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION--the Avery O. Craven Award of the Organization of American Historians, the Fred W. Morrison Prize of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina Press, and the V.O. Key Prize of the Southern Political Science Association (co-winner). His research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and he has been awarded fellowships by the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Thomas G. Paterson, professor emeritus of history at the University of Connecticut, graduated from the University of New Hampshire (B.A., 1963) and the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1968). He is the author of Soviet-American Confrontation (1973), Meeting the Communist Threat (1988), On Every Front (1992), Contesting Castro (1994), America Ascendant (with J. Garry Clifford, 1995), and A People and a Nation (with Mary Beth Norton et al., 2001). Tom is also the editor of Cold War Critics (1971), Kennedy's Quest for Victory (1989), Imperial Surge (with Stephen G. Rabe, 1992), The Origins of the Cold War (with Robert McMahon, 1999), Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (with Michael J. Hogan, 2004), and Major Problems in American Foreign Relations (with Dennis Merrill, 2010). With Bruce Jentleson, he served as senior editor for the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Relations (1997). A microfilm edition of The United States and Castro's Cuba, 1950s–1970s: The Paterson Collection appeared in 1999. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of American History and Diplomatic History. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he has directed National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars for College Teachers. In 2000 the New England History Teachers Association recognized his excellence in teaching and mentoring with the Kidger Award. Besides visits to many American campuses, Tom has lectured in Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, and Venezuela. He is a past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, which in 2008 honored him with the Laura and Norman Graebner Award for "lifetime achievement" in scholarship, service, and teaching. A native of Oregon, Tom is now informally associated with Southern Oregon University.

Customer Reviews

Primary Sources for the Civil War
This book deserves 5 stars for drawing together a large, diverse group of primary source documents, and related articles by noted historians. The book helps to explain why the North and the South were so far apart, before, during, and after the Civil War. If Michael Perman had written this book, instead of editing and commenting on the source documents, the rating would be lower, because the source documents are sometimes difficult to understand. However, this does not detract from the fact that Perman has done an outstanding job of presenting conflicting opinions. The documents make it obvious why the North and South were at the opposite end of many issues. After reading this book, you will have a better understanding of why the South seceded, why the Civil War started and lasted as long as it did, and why Reconstruction was both a success and a failure. You will understand why the South lost the war and won the peace.

I recommend this book as an adjunct to any study of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. Even though it is not always easy to understand the primary source documents, Perman's editorial comments, in each chapter, are excellent summaries. They make it easy to understand the meat of the discussion in each document.

This is not light reading. Buy it if you want to truly understand all of the things they did not teach you in high school. For me, high school greatly simplified the period of US history from about 1800 to 1960. With this book, you can begin to understand why African Americans view this period as an African American holocaust, and why the North and South were so far apart that they hated each other for generations.

Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction takes the reader to the Civil War era and vice versa
Instead of the typical secondary source text, Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction allows the reader to get a true, inside viewpoint on the war but behind the scenes as well. It includes letters and documents from the time period as well as essays on all the different aspects of before, during and after the war. While it is sometimes difficult to follow the language of the time period it is worth the extra time for analysis to really be brought in on what was actually written and said over a century ago. Perman's book also offers both sides of conflicts, allowing both Union and Confederate voices. I would definitely use Major Problems in the United States history or Civil War classroom.

Major Problems, Major Resourceful!
Michael Perman successfully incorporates primary documents from throughout the Civil War & Reconstruction to allow readers to gain a better insight into the real causes and issues with the Civil War. The chapters are brilliantly divided and very easy to reference for information. From the beginning of the book, Perman and friends establish the similarities are differences between the North and the South to act as a baseline to understand interactions and decisions made throughout the era. I really enjoyed Perman's introductions to certain chapters and the way he allows characters from the time to tell the story from their individual perspectives. All in all, great resource, great primary documents and great book for teaching about the Civil War time period.