The American Civil War was by far the bloodiest conflict in American history. Arising out of a political crisis over the expansion of slavery, the war set the stage for the emergence of the modern American nation-state. This new interpretation of one of the most mythologized events in modern history combines narrative with analysis and an up-to-date assessment of the state of Civil War scholarship. The American Civil War: emphasizes the importance of Northern public opinion in shaping the meaning and outcome of the crisis argues that the war exposed deep social and political divisions within, as well as between, North and South explores the experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians, and the political and cultural context in which they lived sets this distinctively American crisis over slavery and nationhood in the wider context of the nineteenthcentury world. Concise and authoritative, this is an indispensable introduction to a critical period in modern American history.

ADAM I. P. SMITH is Lecturer in American History at University College London, UK. He is the author of No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War North.