America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation
On the 150th anniversary of the onset of the US Civil War, a lively, compelling account of its roots.
America Aflame
By David Goldfield
Bloomsbury USA
640 pp
With some 50,000 books published on the American Civil War – and many more in the pipeline this year as 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the war’s beginning – you can be forgiven for asking, “Another?” But David Goldfield’s America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation is a riveting, comprehensive, and delightful piece of historical writing.
Goldfield, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has written or edited 16 books, and he is a wonderful storyteller with a facile, compact prose style that transforms complex historical ingredients into a savory meal. While not skimping on the details, he doesn’t allow the reader to get lost in them, either. Did you know that in November 1864, President Lincoln attended the theater in Washington and was so taken with the performance of an actor that he invited the thespian to the White House? John Wilkes Booth demurred.
Another telling factoid: After the Civil War, the organization of Union veterans barred from membership all Irish-Americans. Such un-American attitudes didn’t bode well for the postwar fate of African-Americans.
