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America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation Paperback – September 4, 2012
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In this spellbinding history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where other scholars have seen the conflict as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield paints it as America's greatest failure: a breakdown of society caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the world of politics.
The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not: It made the United States one nation and eliminated the divisive force of slavery. The victorious North moved ahead, a land of innovation and industry. Religion was supplanted by a gospel of economic and scientific progress, and the South was left behind. The "fiery trial" of war transformed our country-a conflagration captured in vivid detail in America Aflame.
- Print length640 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBloomsbury Press
- Publication dateSeptember 4, 2012
- Dimensions6.22 x 1.64 x 9.32 inches
- ISBN-10160819390X
- ISBN-13978-1608193905
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About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Bloomsbury Press
- Publication date : September 4, 2012
- Edition : First Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 640 pages
- ISBN-10 : 160819390X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1608193905
- Item Weight : 1.58 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.22 x 1.64 x 9.32 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,449,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,962 in U.S. Civil War History
About the author

David Goldfield was born in Memphis and grew up in Brooklyn, a combination that has left him with a cracker edginess that an education at the University of Maryland did not soften. He did learn how to write, though -- sixteen books on Southern and American (they’re different) history. He is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Goldfield also consults for museums and historic sites, gives programs on American culture for the U.S. State Department in various countries, and serves as an expert witness in voting rights and death penalty cases. He likes to talk. His most recent book is America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, published in 2011, and he is currently working on a book, “The Gifted Generation,” about life in post-World War II America. In the interstices of teaching, talking, writing, and researching, he enjoys the music of Buddy Holly and Gustav Mahler (though not at the same time), reading Southern novels, jogging (though he still calls it running), and baseball.
Email: drgoldfi@uncc.edu
Web site: www.davidgoldfield.us










