The World the Civil War Made

At the close of the Civil War it was clear that the military conflict that began in South Carolina and was fought largely east of the Mississippi River had changed the politics policy and daily life of the entire nation. In an expansive reimagining of post–Civil War America the essays in this volume explore these profound changes not only in the South but also in the Southwest in the Great Plains and abroad. Resisting the tendency to use Reconstruction as a catchall the contributors instead present diverse histories of a postwar nation that stubbornly refused to adopt a unified ideology and remained violently in flux. Portraying the social and political landscape of postbellum America writ large this volume demonstrates that by breaking the boundaries of region and race and moving past existing critical frameworks we can appreciate more fully the competing and often contradictory ideas about freedom and equality that continued to define the United States and its place in the nineteenth-century world.<br/><br/>Contributors include Amanda Claybaugh Laura F. Edwards Crystal N. Feimster C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa Steven Hahn Luke E. Harlow Stephen Kantrowitz Barbara Krauthamer K. Stephen Prince Stacey L. Smith Amy Dru Stanley Kidada E. Williams and Andrew Zimmerman.