Ordeal By Fire, Volume II, The Civil War

From the book:

A note on this paperback edition:

This volume is part of a separate printing of Ordeal by Fire, Second Edition, not a new or revised edition. Many teachers who have used the full edition of Ordeal by Fire have suggested separate publication of two of it's parts--"The Coming of War" and "The Civil War" --as individual volumes for adaptation to various types and structures of courses. This edition, then, is intended as a convenience for those instructors and students who wish to use one part or another of Ordeal by Fire rather than the full edition. The pagination of the full edition is retained here, but the table of contents, bibliography, and index cover only the material in this volume.

Preface to the First Edition:

The Civil War is the central event in the American historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 preserved this creation from destruction and determined, in large measure, what sort of nation it would be. The war settled two fundamental issues for the United States: whether it was to be a nation with sovereign national government, or a dissoluble conferation of sovereign states; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men are created with an equal right to liberty, was to continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world. The Constitution of 1789 had left these issues unresolved. By 1861 there was no way around them; one way or another, a solution had to be found.

The Civil War shaped the institutions of modern America. It did so at the cost of 620,000 soldiers deaths--almost equal to the number of American deaths in all the rest of the nation's wars combined. The Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between 1815 and 1914. It was a total war. It mobilized the total resources of the two societies that fought it, and utterly devastated the resources of the loser. The principal issues of the war, sovereignty and freedom, proved to be uncompromisable. All efforts for a negotiated peace failed, and the war ended--could only have ended--in unconditional surrender. The war destroyed not only slavery and the Confederacy, but also the socioeconomic foundations on which these institutions had been built.

Maps at beginning and end.

Good condition. The first page has writing in ink at the top of the page. Top and bottom of closed book pages have writing or stamps. Approximately 138 pages have either have text highlighted or underlined in ink. Binding is good. Good readable copy.

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557 pages including Bibliography and Index.