Louis P. Masur – författare

On April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln gave his final speech to thousands gathered in the rain outside the executive mansion in Washington, D.C. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and a week after the fall of Richmond, the crowd expected a victory oration. Instead, they heard the President's ideas about how best to proceed in returning the seceded states to "proper practical relation " with the national government and how to advance the status of freedmen in a nation soon to be without slavery. After Lincoln's endorsement of limited black suffrage, one listener had heard enough. Walking away, John Wilkes Booth remarked, "That is the last speech he will ever make. " Three days later, he made good on his threat.Significant in part because it was his last, Lincoln's April 11th speech is also particularly important for providing us with the president's final public thoughts on the problem of reconstruction, a process, as he said that night, "fraught with difficulty. " In Lincoln's Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur uses the occasion of this speech to trace the debate over reconstruction policies--which, he shows, began not with war's end, but with the war's beginning. Masur reveals how, from the start of the war, restoring the union was foremost on Lincoln's mind, and between 1861 and 1865 he pressed multiple plans of action. Even as battles raged, and the odds of victory continued to shift, the aftermath of war was never far from the thoughts of northern statesmen. Masur traces the evolution of Lincoln's ideas and the debate over reconstruction during the war, from the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863 to the Wade-Davis bill pushed through Congress by radical Republicans in July 2 1864, and Lincoln's resulting pocket veto. In addition to political reconstruction, Masur examines the questions around social reconstruction, the plight of the freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in American society. And he considers the implications of Lincoln's speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the battles over reconstruction ensued. Filling an important gap in the Lincoln literature, Lincoln's Last Speech illuminates the disputed question of reconstruction, from the earliest days of the Civil War up through the president's final address, and allows us to retrace the path that brought him and the nation to reunion.

What did Abraham Lincoln envision when he talked about "reconstruction?" Assassinated in 1865, the president did not have a chance to begin the work of reconciling the North and South, nor to oversee Reconstruction as an official postwar strategy. Yet his final speech, given to thousands gathered in the rain outside the White House on April 11, 1865, gives a clear indication of what Lincoln''s postwar policy might have looked like-one that differed starkly from what would emerge in the tumultuous decade that followed.In Lincoln''s Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur offers insight into this critical address and its vision of a reconstructed United States. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee''s surrender at Appomattox and a week after the fall of Richmond, Lincoln''s speech was expected to be a victory oration. Instead, he looked to the future, discussing how best to restore the seceded states to the national government, and even endorsing limited black suffrage. Delving into the language and arguments of Lincoln''s last address, Masur traces the theme of reconstruction as it developed throughout his presidency, starting with the very earliest days of the war. Masur illuminates the evolution of Lincoln''s thinking and the national debate around reconstruction, touching on key moments such as the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863, and Lincoln''s pocket veto of the Wade-Davis bill in July 1864. He also examines social reconstruction, including the plight of freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in society; and considers the implications of Lincoln''s speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the ground was laid for the most radical phases of the postwar policy. A nuanced study of Lincoln''s views on national reconciliation, this work gives us a better understanding of the failures that occurred with postwar Reconstruction and the eventual path that brought the country to reunion.

What did Abraham Lincoln envision when he talked about "reconstruction?" Assassinated in 1865, the president did not have a chance to begin the work of reconciling the North and South, nor to oversee Reconstruction as an official postwar strategy. Yet his final speech, given to thousands gathered in the rain outside the White House on April 11, 1865, gives a clear indication of what Lincoln''s postwar policy might have looked like-one that differed starkly from what would emerge in the tumultuous decade that followed.In Lincoln''s Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur offers insight into this critical address and its vision of a reconstructed United States. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee''s surrender at Appomattox and a week after the fall of Richmond, Lincoln''s speech was expected to be a victory oration. Instead, he looked to the future, discussing how best to restore the seceded states to the national government, and even endorsing limited black suffrage. Delving into the language and arguments of Lincoln''s last address, Masur traces the theme of reconstruction as it developed throughout his presidency, starting with the very earliest days of the war. Masur illuminates the evolution of Lincoln''s thinking and the national debate around reconstruction, touching on key moments such as the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863, and Lincoln''s pocket veto of the Wade-Davis bill in July 1864. He also examines social reconstruction, including the plight of freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in society; and considers the implications of Lincoln''s speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the ground was laid for the most radical phases of the postwar policy. A nuanced study of Lincoln''s views on national reconciliation, this work gives us a better understanding of the failures that occurred with postwar Reconstruction and the eventual path that brought the country to reunion.

What did Abraham Lincoln envision when he talked about "reconstruction?" Assassinated in 1865, the president did not have a chance to begin the work of reconciling the North and South, nor to oversee Reconstruction as an official postwar strategy. Yet his final speech, given to thousands gathered in the rain outside the White House on April 11, 1865, gives a clear indication of what Lincoln's postwar policy might have looked like-one that differed starkly from what would emerge in the tumultuous decade that followed.In Lincoln's Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur offers insight into this critical address and its vision of a reconstructed United States. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox and a week after the fall of Richmond, Lincoln's speech was expected to be a victory oration. Instead, he looked to the future, discussing how best to restore the seceded states to the national government, and even endorsing limited black suffrage. Delving into the language and arguments of Lincoln's last address, Masur traces the theme of reconstruction as it developed throughout his presidency, starting with the very earliest days of the war. Masur illuminates the evolution of Lincoln's thinking and the national debate around reconstruction, touching on key moments such as the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863, and Lincoln's pocket veto of the Wade-Davis bill in July 1864. He also examines social reconstruction, including the plight of freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in society; and considers the implications of Lincoln's speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the ground was laid for the most radical phases of the postwar policy. A nuanced study of Lincoln's views on national reconciliation, this work gives us a better understanding of the failures that occurred with postwar Reconstruction and the eventual path that brought the country to reunion.

In The Sum of Our Dreams, Louis P. Masur offers a sweeping yet compact history of America from its beginnings to the current moment. For general readers seeking an accessible, single-volume account, one that challenges but does not overwhelm, and which distills and connects the major events and figures in the country''s past in a single narrative, here is that book. Evoking Barack Obama''s belief that America remains the "sum of its dreams," Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation''s struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise. Moving from the Colonial Era, to the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic, and through the Civil War, Masur turns his attention to Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Age, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, and then laying out clearly and concisely what underlies the divisiveness that has characterized American civic life over the last forty years-and now more than ever. Above all, however, Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin''s observation that "American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it," he expands our notion of that history while identifying its individual threads. The Sum of Our Dreams will be the new go-to single volume for anyone wanting a foundational understanding of the nation''s past, and its present.

In The Sum of Our Dreams, Louis P. Masur offers a sweeping yet compact history of America from its beginnings to the current moment. For general readers seeking an accessible, single-volume account, one that challenges but does not overwhelm, and which distills and connects the major events and figures in the country''s past in a single narrative, here is that book. Evoking Barack Obama''s belief that America remains the "sum of its dreams," Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation''s struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise. Moving from the Colonial Era, to the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic, and through the Civil War, Masur turns his attention to Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Age, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, and then laying out clearly and concisely what underlies the divisiveness that has characterized American civic life over the last forty years-and now more than ever. Above all, however, Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin''s observation that "American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it," he expands our notion of that history while identifying its individual threads. The Sum of Our Dreams will be the new go-to single volume for anyone wanting a foundational understanding of the nation''s past, and its present.

Louis Masur's handsomely written account describes how, in the 1830s, public hangings were abandoned in favour of executions in the seclusion of prison yards. Masur sees attitudes toward state killing from the Revolution to the Civil War as reflecting the nation's social thinking.

Drawing on a wide range of material, including diaries, letters, and essays, Masur captures the reactions, as the war was waged, of writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Louisa May Alcott.

More than one hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America's social and political landscape. Louis P. Masur's The U.S. Civil War: A Very Short Introduction offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America's Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." This concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.

A storied friendship between two of America's founders--one that endured for fifty years--and the roadtrip that forged it. Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and President Washington was in his first term of office. Whether the country could overcome regional and political differences and remain unified, however, was still very much in question. Hence why some observers at the time wondered whether this excursion into Federalist New England by the two most prominent southern Democratic-Republicans, both future presidents, had an ulterior motive. Madison, maintained that the journey was for "health, recreation, and curiosity." He and Jefferson needed a break from their public responsibilities, so off they set. Along the way, they took notes on the ravages of the Hessian Fly, an insect that had been devastating wheat crops. While in Vermont, they focused on the sugar maple tree, which many hoped might offer a domestic alternative to slave-grown sugar cane imports. An encounter with a free Black farmer at Fort George resulted in a journal entry that illuminates their attitudes toward slavery and race. A meeting with members of the Unkechaug tribe on Long Island led to a vocabulary project that preoccupied Jefferson for decades, and which remains relevant today.The Northern Journey was also about friendship. Madison later recalled that the trip made Jefferson and him "immediate companions," solidifying a bond with almost no peer in the annals of American history, one that thrived for fifty years. Jefferson declared at the end of his life, that his friendship with Madison had been "a source of constant happiness" to him. This book reveals the moment when it took hold.

A storied friendship between two of America's founders--one that endured for fifty years--and the roadtrip that forged it. Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "e;northern journey"e; came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and President Washington was in his first term of office. Whether the country could overcome regional and political differences and remain unified, however, was still very much in question. Hence why some observers at the time wondered whether this excursion into Federalist New England by the two most prominent southern Democratic-Republicans, both future presidents, had an ulterior motive. Madison, maintained that the journey was for "e;health, recreation, and curiosity."e; He and Jefferson needed a break from their public responsibilities, so off they set. Along the way, they took notes on the ravages of the Hessian Fly, an insect that had been devastating wheat crops. While in Vermont, they focused on the sugar maple tree, which many hoped might offer a domestic alternative to slave-grown sugar cane imports. An encounter with a free Black farmer at Fort George resulted in a journal entry that illuminates their attitudes toward slavery and race. A meeting with members of the Unkechaug tribe on Long Island led to a vocabulary project that preoccupied Jefferson for decades, and which remains relevant today. The Northern Journey was also about friendship. Madison later recalled that the trip made Jefferson and him "e;immediate companions,"e; solidifying a bond with almost no peer in the annals of American history, one that thrived for fifty years. Jefferson declared at the end of his life, that his friendship with Madison had been "e;a source of constant happiness"e; to him. This book reveals the moment when it took hold.

A storied friendship between two of America's founders--one that endured for fifty years--and the roadtrip that forged it. Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "e;northern journey"e; came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and President Washington was in his first term of office. Whether the country could overcome regional and political differences and remain unified, however, was still very much in question. Hence why some observers at the time wondered whether this excursion into Federalist New England by the two most prominent southern Democratic-Republicans, both future presidents, had an ulterior motive. Madison, maintained that the journey was for "e;health, recreation, and curiosity."e; He and Jefferson needed a break from their public responsibilities, so off they set. Along the way, they took notes on the ravages of the Hessian Fly, an insect that had been devastating wheat crops. While in Vermont, they focused on the sugar maple tree, which many hoped might offer a domestic alternative to slave-grown sugar cane imports. An encounter with a free Black farmer at Fort George resulted in a journal entry that illuminates their attitudes toward slavery and race. A meeting with members of the Unkechaug tribe on Long Island led to a vocabulary project that preoccupied Jefferson for decades, and which remains relevant today. The Northern Journey was also about friendship. Madison later recalled that the trip made Jefferson and him "e;immediate companions,"e; solidifying a bond with almost no peer in the annals of American history, one that thrived for fifty years. Jefferson declared at the end of his life, that his friendship with Madison had been "e;a source of constant happiness"e; to him. This book reveals the moment when it took hold.

In The Sum of Our Dreams, Louis P. Masur offers a sweeping yet compact history of America from its beginnings to the current moment. For general readers seeking an accessible, single-volume account, one that challenges but does not overwhelm, and which distills and connects the major events and figures in the country's past in a single narrative, here is that book. Evoking Barack Obama's belief that America remains the "sum of its dreams," Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation's struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise. Moving from the Colonial Era, to the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic, and through the Civil War, Masur turns his attention to Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Age, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, and then laying out clearly and concisely what underlies the divisiveness that has characterized American civic life over the last forty years-and now more than ever. Above all, however, Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin's observation that "American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it," he expands our notion of that history while identifying its individual threads. The Sum of Our Dreams will be the new go-to single volume for anyone wanting a foundational understanding of the nation's past, and its present.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Western societies abandoned public executions in favor of private punishments, primarily confinement in penitentiaries and private executions. The transition, guided by a reconceptualization of the causes of crime, the nature of authority, and the purposes of punishment, embodied the triumph of new sensibilities and the reconstitution of cultural values throughout the Western world. This study examines the conflict over capital punishment in the United States and the way it transformed American culture between the Revolution and the Civil War. Relating the gradual shift in rituals of punishment and attitudes toward discipline to the emergence of a middle class culture that valued internal restraints and private punishments, Masur traces the changing configuration of American criminal justice. He examines the design of execution day in the Revolutionary era as a spectacle of civil and religious order, the origins of organized opposition to the death penalty and the invention of the penitentiary, the creation of private executions, reform organizations'' commitment to social activism, and the competing visions of humanity and society lodged at the core of the debate over capital punishment. A fascinating and thoughtful look at a topic that remains of burning interest today, Rites of Execution will attract a wide range of scholarly and general readers.

"These thousands, and tens and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded, all sorts of wounds, operated on, pallid with diarrhea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, &c. open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines than any yet, showing our humanity, (I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife,) tried by terrible, fearfulest tests, probed deepest, the living soul''s, the body''s tragedies, bursting the petty bounds of art." So wrote Walt Whitman in March of 1863, in a letter telling friends in New York what he had witnessed in Washington''s war hospitals. In this, we see both a description of war''s ravages and a major artist''s imaginative response to the horrors of war as it "bursts the petty bounds of art." In "...the real war will never get in the books", Louis Masur has brought together fourteen of the most eloquent and articulate writers of the Civil War period, including such major literary figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Louisa May Alcott. Drawing on a wide range of material, including diaries, letters, and essays, Masur captures the reactions of these writers as the war was waged, providing a broad spectrum of views. Emerson, for instance, sees the war "come as a frosty October, which shall restore intellectual & moral power to these languid & dissipated populations." African-American writer Charlotte Forten writes sadly of the slaughter at Fort Wagner: "It seems very, very hard that the best and noblest must be the earliest called away. Especially has it been so throughout this dreadful war." There are writings by soldiers in combat. John Esten Cooke, a writer of popular pre-Revolutionary romances serving as a Confederate soldier under J.E.B. Stuart, describes Stonewall Jackson''s uniform: "It was positively scorched by sun--had that dingy hue, the product of sun and rain, and contact with the ground...but the men of the old Stonewall Brigade loved that coat." And John De Forest, a Union officer, describes facing a Confederate volley: "It was a long rattle like that which a boy makes in running with a stick along a picket-fence, only vastly louder; and at the same time the sharp, quiet whit-whit of bullets chippered close to our ears." And along the way, we sample many vivid portraits of the era, perhaps the most surprising of which is Louisa May Alcott''s explanation of why she preferred her noon-to-midnight schedule in a Washington hospital: "I like it as it leaves me time for a morning run which is what I need to keep well....I trot up & down the streets in all directions, some times to the Heights, then half way to Washington, again to the hill over which the long trains of army wagons are constantly vanishing & ambulances appearing. That way the fighting lies, & I long to follow." With unmatched intimacy and immediacy, "...the real war will never get in the books" illuminates the often painful intellectual and emotional efforts of fourteen accomplished writers as they come to grips with "The American Apocalypse."

One hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captivates the American imagination, and its reverberations continue to be felt throughout the nation's social and political landscape. Louis P. Masur's The Civil War: A Concise History is a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. He then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a conflict over restoring the Union to an all-out war that would transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation with new political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than the American Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that would divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners, for years to come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." From the vantage of the war's sesquicentennial, this concise history of the Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects resonate even today.

One hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America''s social and political landscape. Louis P. Masur''s The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war''s multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America''s Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South''s surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." From the vantage of the war''s sesquicentennial, this concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.

One hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America''s social and political landscape. Louis P. Masur''s The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war''s multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America''s Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South''s surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." From the vantage of the war''s sesquicentennial, this concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.

"These thousands, and tens and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded, all sorts of wounds, operated on, pallid with diarrhea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, &c. open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines than any yet, showing our humanity, (I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife,) tried by terrible, fearfulest tests, probed deepest, the living soul''s, the body''s tragedies, bursting the petty bounds of art." So wrote Walt Whitman in March of 1863, in a letter telling friends in New York what he had witnessed in Washington''s war hospitals. In this, we see both a description of war''s ravages and a major artist''s imaginative response to the horrors of war as it "bursts the petty bounds of art." In "...the real war will never get in the books", Louis Masur has brought together fourteen of the most eloquent and articulate writers of the Civil War period, including such major literary figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Louisa May Alcott. Drawing on a wide range of material, including diaries, letters, and essays, Masur captures the reactions of these writers as the war was waged, providing a broad spectrum of views. Emerson, for instance, sees the war "come as a frosty October, which shall restore intellectual & moral power to these languid & dissipated populations." African-American writer Charlotte Forten writes sadly of the slaughter at Fort Wagner: "It seems very, very hard that the best and noblest must be the earliest called away. Especially has it been so throughout this dreadful war." There are writings by soldiers in combat. John Esten Cooke, a writer of popular pre-Revolutionary romances serving as a Confederate soldier under J.E.B. Stuart, describes Stonewall Jackson''s uniform: "It was positively scorched by sun--had that dingy hue, the product of sun and rain, and contact with the ground...but the men of the old Stonewall Brigade loved that coat." And John De Forest, a Union officer, describes facing a Confederate volley: "It was a long rattle like that which a boy makes in running with a stick along a picket-fence, only vastly louder; and at the same time the sharp, quiet whit-whit of bullets chippered close to our ears." And along the way, we sample many vivid portraits of the era, perhaps the most surprising of which is Louisa May Alcott''s explanation of why she preferred her noon-to-midnight schedule in a Washington hospital: "I like it as it leaves me time for a morning run which is what I need to keep well....I trot up & down the streets in all directions, some times to the Heights, then half way to Washington, again to the hill over which the long trains of army wagons are constantly vanishing & ambulances appearing. That way the fighting lies, & I long to follow." With unmatched intimacy and immediacy, "...the real war will never get in the books" illuminates the often painful intellectual and emotional efforts of fourteen accomplished writers as they come to grips with "The American Apocalypse."

"The time has come now," Abraham Lincoln told his cabinet as he presented the preliminary draft of a "Proclamation of Emancipation." Lincoln's effort to end slavery has been controversial from its inception-when it was denounced by some as an unconstitutional usurpation and by others as an inadequate half-measure-up to the present, as historians have discounted its import and impact. At the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, Louis Masur seeks to restore the document's reputation by exploring its evolution.Lincoln's Hundred Days is the first book to tell the full story of the critical period between September 22, 1862, when Lincoln issued his preliminary Proclamation, and January 1, 1863, when he signed the final, significantly altered, decree. In those tumultuous hundred days, as battlefield deaths mounted, debate raged. Masur commands vast primary sources to portray the daily struggles and enormous consequences of the president's efforts as Lincoln led a nation through war and toward emancipation. With his deadline looming, Lincoln hesitated and calculated, frustrating friends and foes alike, as he reckoned with the anxieties and expectations of millions. We hear these concerns, from poets, cabinet members and foreign officials, from enlisted men on the front and free blacks as well as slaves.Masur presents a fresh portrait of Lincoln as a complex figure who worried about, listened to, debated, prayed for, and even joked with his country, and then followed his conviction in directing America toward a terrifying and thrilling unknown.

"If historical scholarship has often proved irrelevant to the world outside university walls, history itself has burst into the public domain. Over the last decade, we have witnessed intense national debates over how to present historic events to a public that attends museums, monitors education in the schools, and gazes at the History Channel. Under these circumstances, historians face the challenge of developing new ways of understanding the past and the place of the past in the present. The essays in this volume explore how scholars have reformulated the study of American history over the past fifteen years and identify new headings for future work."-from the Preface In The Challenge of American History, Louis Masur brings together a sampling recent scholarship to determine the key issues preoccupying historians of American history and to contemplate the discipline's direction for the future. The 15 summary essays comprising this volume allow professional historians, history teachers, and students to grasp in a convenient and accessible form what historians have been writing about.Arranged in a general chronological order, these essays probe such topics as the age of discovery, colonial American history, emancipation, race and labor history, law and political development, and the nature of historical writing since the 1960s. Additional essays discuss race and gender in colonial as well as modern America, the new paradigms of urban history, religious history, visual culture, public history, the new narrative history, and the meanings of national culture.

To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen''s Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album-it''s a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen''s status as a quintessential American performer: the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run. Springsteen wanted Born to Run to be the greatest rock record ever made. For a musician with just two modest-selling LPs to his credit, it was an extraordinary ambition, and session by session, track by track, Masur shows just how much grit, as well as genius, went into realizing it. Runaway Dream offers an expert tour of the trials and triumphs of Springsteen''s work. In addition to the story of the album itself, Masur masterfully places Born to Run within American cultural history, showing why the girls, hot rods, and Jersey nights of the album still resonate, even for listeners born years after its release.

Bruce Springsteen often prefers to let his music do the talking. His onstage stories and shaggy dog tales have long entertained his fans, but his songs and his guitar provide the most direct line to their hearts. Considering his prominence on the rock ''n'' roll landscape, Springsteen has spent remarkably little of his 40-year recording career speaking to the press. But when he does decide to sit down and talk, the conversations tend to be momentous. Q&As with Bruce Springsteen reveal an artist with great insight and self-awareness, a student of music, an avid searcher, an astute observer of humanity from the boardwalk to America at large. Much has been written about the Boss, but few can be said to know the man as well as he knows himself, and the best of Springsteen''s own words are collected here in Talk About a Dream. Gathering more than 30 different interviews spanning from 1973 to 2013, this volume captures his remarkable personality-one that takes interviews as seriously as making music. These eye-opening conversations chart Springsteen''s development as an artist, a thinker, and a public figure, shedding light on everything from the meaning of lyrics to his evolution from rebel rocker to global icon.