“An extremely good writer, [Ayers] is well worth reading . . . on the South and Southern history.”—Stephen Sears, Boston Globe The Southern past has prove

Presents debate on the issues and events leading up to the American Civil War.

While South Carolina's preemptive strike on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's subsequent call to arms started the Civil War, South Carolina's secession and Lincoln's mi

Clash of Extremes takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more tha

"Explains the causes of the American Civil War, including legislative efforts to prevent the conflict, and the rising sectional tensions during the 1850s that u