TY - BOOK AU - Goldfield,David R. TI - America aflame: how the Civil War created a nation SN - 9781596917026 (hbk.) AV - 002 E 178.1 G618a 2011 U1 - 973 PY - 2011/// CY - New York PB - Bloomsbury Press KW - National characteristics, American KW - Estados Unidos KW - Historia KW - United States KW - History KW - Civil War, 1861-1865 KW - Influence KW - Causes KW - Campaigns KW - Religious aspects KW - Social aspects N1 - Includes bibliographical references (p. [591]-615) and index; A nation reborn -- Crusades -- Empire -- Revolutions -- Railroaded -- Blood on the Plains -- Revival -- The boatman -- The tug comes -- Just causes -- Shiloh awakening -- Born in a day -- Blood and transcendence -- A new nation -- War is cruelty -- One nation, indivisible -- The age of reason -- Aspirations -- A golden moment -- The golden spike -- Political science -- Let it be -- Centennial N2 - In this history, the author offers a new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom." Where past scholars have limned the war as a triumph of freedom, this author sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere. As the Second Great Awakening surged through America, political questions became matters of good and evil to be fought to the death. The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not ER -