The War Before the War
Book description
A New York Times Notable Book Selection
Winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Winner of the Lionel Trilling Book Award
A New York Times Critics' Best Book
"Excellent... stunning."-Ta-Nehisi Coates
This book tells the story of America's original sin-slavery-through politics, law, literature, and…
Why read it?
1 author picked The War Before the War as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Even now we can't quite help thinking that America could have ended slavery without fighting a monstrous war. Delbanco argues that war was not only unavoidable--hardly, in fact, a controversial proposition--but that what made it so was not Kansas-Nebraska or Dred Scott but the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Once Congress agreed that slave-owners could pursue escaped slaves into free territory, and mobilize the federal government to track them down, Northerners got to see first-hand just what it meant to treat humans as chattel. Those sickening scenes helped bring the Republican Party into existence and made its cause that of…
From James' list on the run-up to the American Civil War.
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