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| About the book |
Ordeal by Fire blends the most up-to-date scholarship with interpretations based on decades of teaching, research, and writing, to tell an important story--that of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The fourth edition welcomes the addition of coauthor James Hogue of University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Hogue brings his Reconstruction expertise to the third section of the book, bringing more up-to-date scholarship and interpretations to the story of repairing a nation. |
| Key features |
| About the authors |
James McPherson James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History at Princeton University where he has taught since 1962. He received his BA from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1958 and his PhD from The Johns Hopkins University in 1963. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a Scaver Institute Fellow at the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California. In 1999, McPherson received the Public Humanities Award of the New Jersey Council of the Humanities. A leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author, McPherson has written many books including most recently, What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (1994), Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (1996), For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), and Is Blood Thicker Than Water? Crises of Modern Nationalism (1998). |
| Table of contents |
Prologue: The Setting of Conflict Part One: The Coming of War Chapter One: American Modernization, 1800-1860 Chapter Two: The Antebellum South Chapter Three: The Ideological Conflict over Slavery Chapter Four: Texas, Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850 Chapter Five: Filibusters, Fugitives, and Nativists Chapter Six: Kansas and the Rise of the Republican Party Chapter Seven: The Deepening Crisis, 1857-1859 Chapter Eight: The Critical Year, 1859-1860 Chapter Nine: Secession and the Coming of War Part Two: The Civil War Chapter Ten: A Brothers' War: The Upper South Chapter Eleven: Mobilizing for War Chapter Twelve: The Balance Sheet of War Chapter Thirteen: The War at Home and Abroad Chapter Fourteen: The Springtime of Northern Hope Chapter Fifteen: Jackson and Lee Strike Back Chapter Sixteen: Slavery and the War: Northern Politics, 1861-1862 Chapter Seventeen: The First Turning Point: Antietam and Emancipation Chapter Eighteen: The Winter of Northern Discontent Chapter Nineteen: The Second Turning Point: Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga Chapter Twenty: War Issues and Politics in 1863 Chapter Twenty-One: Behind the Lines Chapter Twenty-Two: Wartime Reconstruction and the Freedpeople Chapter Twenty-Three: Military Stalemate, 1864 Chapter Twenty-Four: The Third Turning Point: The Election of 1864 Chapter Twenty-Five: The End of the Confederacy Part Three: Reconstruction Chapter Twenty-Six: The Problems of Peace Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Origins of "Radical Reconstruction" Chapter Twenty-Eight: Reconstruction and the Crisis of Impeachment Chapter Twenty-Nine: The First Grant Administration Chapter Thirty: The Making of the New Regime in the South, 1869-1872 Chapter Thirty-One: Social and Economic Reconstruction Chapter Thirty-Two: The Retreat from Reconstruction Chapter Thirty-Three: The New South Epilogue |
