About the Author

William Freehling is Singletary Professor of the Humanities at the University of Kentucky. His first book, Prelude to Civil War, won both an Allan Nevins and a Bancroft Prize and is recognized as one of the most significant studies of the Civil War era published in the past three decades.

Reviews

Brims with wisdom and wit ... Essential for any collection on the nation, the South, or antebellum politics. Library Journal No work about the road to disunion rivals it in comprehensiveness and strength of argument ... A superb example of modern historical practice. Washington Times

Brims with wisdom and wit ... Essential for any collection on the nation, the South, or antebellum politics. Library Journal No work about the road to disunion rivals it in comprehensiveness and strength of argument ... A superb example of modern historical practice. Washington Times

Broadening the search that led to his prize-winning Prelude to Civil War (1966), Freehling seeks to track Southern disunion from independence to secession. He reaches the Kansas-Nebraska Act in this first of a promised two-part epic that focuses on the South through the filter of national mainstream politics. Freehling brings alive Southern traditions, heroes, villains, and diversity. He depicts various souths caught in an ineluctable tendency to freedom while the antithetical systems of democracy and despotism divided southerners. Akin to James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom (LJ 3/1/88) and Eric Foner's Reconstruction (LJ 4/1/88; both LJ ``Best Books of 1988''), Freehling's masterful synthesis brims with wisdom and wit. It is essential for any collection on the nation, the South, or antebellum politics. Highest recommendation. --Thomas J. Davis, Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y.