2nd Edition

A House Divided The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

By Jonathan Wells Copyright 2017
394 Pages
by Routledge

394 Pages
by Routledge

394 Pages
by Routledge

Consolidating one of the most complex and multi-faceted eras in American History, this new edition of Jonathan Wells’s A House Divided unifies the broad and varied scholarship on the American Civil War. Amassing a variety of research, this accessible and readable text introduces readers to both the war and the Reconstruction period, and how Americans lived during this time of great upheaval... Read more

Introduction: War: The Red Animal

Chapter One: Slavery and the Long-Term Roots of the Civil War

Chapter Two: The Sectional Crisis, 1830-1850

Chapter Three: The 1850s, Secession, and the Start of War

Chapter Four: The War Begins

Chapter Five: Organizing and Mobilizing War

Chapter Six: In the Grip of War

Chapter Seven: Turning Points

Chapter Eight: War on the Homefront

Chapter Nine: The Union Grinds toward Victory

Chapter Ten: Union Victory and African American Freedom

Chapter Eleven: Reconstruction Begins

Chapter Twelve: Collapse of Reconstruction

Chapter Thirteen: America in the Late Ninteenth-Century

Biography

Wells, Jonathan

A House Divided offers students of the Civil War era a sweeping interpretation of the defining crisis of America’s past that is readable and engaging from the first page to the last.

  •  Don H. Doyle, University of South Carolina, author of The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (2014).

Jonathan Wells’ A House Divided expertly introduces readers to one of the most complex eras in American history. Wells’s engaging, comprehensive, and balanced text, peopled with a broad range of actors, guides us through the changes and the continuities of the Civil War. He explains the causes, nature, and outcomes of the conflict with remarkable cogency, guiding readers through historians’ debates, and rooting his story in the words and actions of the era’s most important voices.

  • Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Fred C. Frey Professor of Southern Studies, Louisiana State University

Jonathan Wells' textbook synthesis of the Civil War era succeeds in the difficult task of incorporating new research with traditional themes. As a consequence, students get a readable, state-of-the-art survey of the Civil War era in its full complexity.

  • Frank Towers, University of Calgary, author of Confederate Cities (2015)