McPherson's book is one of the best one-volume treatments of the Civil War yet written.

This is a great introduction to the economic ideas and values of our 16th president.

A balanced treatment of one of the most important political actors to figure in the sectional crisis of the 1850s.

An essential work for understanding the ideology and motivation that impelled the Southern states, one after another, to secede from the Union.

An insightful exploration of the political universe of the Southern Confederacy.

This book, through its treatment of Frederick Douglass, does a great job of underlining the significance of African-Americans in the Civil War at both the political and military levels. Must reading.

A fascinating and balanced memoir by the great artillery officer in the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

An important study dealing with the repression of civil liberties in the North during the Civil War.

This is a valuable study of the role of the British working classes in restraining the pro-Southern British government from intervening during the Civil War.

This book deals with the critical relationship between the Lincoln administration and conservative War Democrats during the war, which is key to any understanding of the evolution of Lincoln's policy.

The border states were strategically critical for both sides during the Civil War; Professor Freehling demonstrates this and shows how Lincoln won this critical struggle.

A fine collection of essays, edited by a great scholar; in particular, see Gary Gallagher on Jubal Early and the lost cause.

What did it all mean? More than 600,000 dead, slavery abolished . . . Gary Wills looks at how Lincoln used language to help establish a "new birth of freedom."