First published 2011
The cannons opened fire on Fort Sumter in April 1861, launching America into its bloodiest conflict. Yet 150 years after the last shots were fired, Americans still argue about why soldiers marched to battle. History textbooks treat the Civil War's causes as settled fact, but popular memory tells a different story. TIME writer David von Drehle examines how a nation systematically forgot, denied, and eventually rediscovered what drove the conflict between North and South. He traces the curious process by which clear historical facts became clouded in passionate confusion. The book reveals how Americans have wrestled with the war's meaning across generations, showing why this struggle to understand the past continues to shape the present.
Genres: history, american-civil-war, 20th-century, 21st-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Fort Sumter, North, South
Period: 1861, 150 Years Ago
26 pages · Kindle Edition · Time