Don't Know Much About the Civil WarDon't Know Much About the Civil War

Historian Kenneth C. Davis brings his remarkable ability for making the past vital and entertaining to this in-depth study of the United States' bloodiest conflict. Not content to rehash the one-dimensional accounts that traditional history textbooks have foisted upon students, Davis reexamines with a fresh, critical eye the situations leading up to and the key events that shaped the Civil War. He begins by reaching back to the earliest days of American history to understand the political, economic, and social conditions that allowed a nation founded upon the notion that "all men are created equal" to enslave and degrade 12 million human souls. In his detailed account of the war's battles and political power struggles, he introduces us to the personalities--from Abraham Lincoln, General Robert E. Lee, and Frederick Douglas to common soldiers and war widows--whose vision, compromises, determination, and powerlessness together made history. Davis also brings to light little-known facts and episodes that for generations were ignored or swept under the rug of the American conscience--including the role of women in the war effort and the massacre of blacks at the hands of Union civilians. All Americans would do well to take a new look at this period of history that "shaped the country's political landscape like the great glaciers had once carved America" because, as Davis explains, its effects linger today. "The Civil War," he says, "remains at the core of our greatest national problem: the great racial divide that grew from slavery." Few programs speak with such intelligence and eloquence about how far the United States has come in terms of what the war taught--and how far it still has to go.