"Up to date in scholarship and brimming with insights, these essays are a vivid reminder of why the issues raised by the Civil War refuse to go away." -- Journal of American History

"Now, thanks to LSU Press, many more Civil War scholars and enthusiasts can access the challenging insights and collective wisdom offered by [these] eminent historians... " -- America's Civil War

In this remarkable collection, ten premier scholars of nineteenth-century America address the epochal impact of the Civil War by examining the conflict in terms of three Americas -- antebellum, wartime, and postbellum nations. Moreover, they recognize the critical role in this transformative era of three groups of Americans -- white northerners, white southerners, and African Americans in the North and South. Through these differing and sometimes competing perspectives, the contributors address crucial ongoing controversies at the epicenter of the cultural, political, and intellectual history of this decisive period in American history.

William J. Cooper, Jr., is the author of Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era; Jefferson Davis, American, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and numerous other books. A Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University, he lives in Baton Rouge.

John M. McCardell, Jr., is the author of The Idea of a Southern Nation and coeditor of A Master's Due: Essays in Honor of David Herbert Donald. He is President Emeritus and College Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.