McPherson also works in many bits of trivia that, while they may not be of historical import, make his treatment nearly effortless reading. ![]() Grant's drinking problem and how he struggled to control it is shown to have shaped the general's personality in many positive ways etc. Social history and verified gossip abound and are used to good effect: the 1851 racing victory of the US yacht America over 14 British vessels in the Royal Yacht Squadron became the talk of the sporting world and, also, heralded this nation's emergence as an industrial and technological force talk of U.S. What distinguishes McPherson's work is his fluid writing style and his able use of anecdote and human interest to flesh out his portrait of the times. The author also addresses arguments about the root origins or that war and pinpoints major causes: hatred of slavery and blind regional prejudice. And McPherson's coverage of the Civil War is just as strong and clear. McPherson delineates the issues that galvanized and divided the American public from the end of the Mexican War in 1848 to the opening of the Civil War in 1861, providing thorough explanations of the pre-war period's gravest crises-the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the prairie guerrilla war it started the national clamor over the Dred Scott case anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant violence and the brief life of the nativist Know-Nothing Party and the panic over John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. From there, the narrative speeds through 28 chapters that draw a precise and lively picture of what America and Americans were like in mid-19th century. The volume begins with a deft description of the ragged American army trudging into Mexico City in 1847. The whole panorama of the Civil War is captured in these pages, from the military campaign, which is described with vividness, immediacy, a grasp of strategy and logistics, and a keen awareness of the military leaders and the common soldiers involved, to its political and social aspects.With this major work, McPherson (History/Princeton Ordeal by Fire) cements his reputation as one of the finest Civil War historians. With a broad historical sweep, it traces the heightening sectional conflict of the 1850s: the growing estrangement of the South and its impassioned defence of slavery the formation of the Republican Party in the North, with its increasing opposition to slavery and the struggle over territorial expansion, with its accompanying social tensions and economic expansion. This book covers one of the most turbulent periods of the USA's history, from the Mexican War in 1848 to the end of the Civil War in 1865. the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across. It is a masterful work' New York Review of Books that effectively integrates in one volume social, political and military events from the immediate aftermath of the Mexican War through the sectional strife of the 1850s, the secession movement, and the Civil War. 'A remarkably wide-ranging synthesis of the history of the 1850s and the Civil War. It will shock you for what it tells you about politics in America today.' Richard Ford It will open your eyes about race history in America.
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