James McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. His most recent book is War on the Waters: The Union and Confederates Navies, 1861-1865.
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America’s ‘Wicked War’
February 7, 2013
A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 US Invasion of Mexico
by Amy S. Greenberg
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‘A Bombshell on the American Public’
November 22, 2012
Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory
by Harold Holzer
Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union
by Louis P. Masur
The Long Road to Antietam: How the Civil War Became a Revolution
by Richard Slotkin
Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year
by David Von Drehle
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What Drove the Terrible War?
July 14, 2011
A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
by Amanda Foreman
The Union War
by Gary W. Gallagher
1861: The Civil War Awakening
by Adam Goodheart
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation
by David Goldfield
God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War
by George C. Rable
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The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln
November 25, 2010
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
by Eric Foner
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Lincoln Off His Pedestal
September 24, 2009
A. Lincoln: A Biography
by Ronald C. White Jr.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
by Michael Burlingame
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
by Fred Kaplan
Mrs. Lincoln: A Life
by Catherine Clinton
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White South Africans and Their Slaves
March 26, 2009
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The Historian Who Saw Through America
December 4, 2008
Diverse Nations: Explorations in the History of Racial and Ethnic Pluralism
by George M. Fredrickson
Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race
by George M. Fredrickson
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Dark Victories
April 17, 2008
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
by Drew Gilpin Faust
Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America’s Culture of Death
by Mark S. Schantz
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They Chose Freedom
March 20, 2008
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
by David W. Blight
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Was It More Restrained Than You Think?
February 14, 2008
The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction
by Mark E. Neely Jr.
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The Fight for Slavery in California
October 11, 2007
The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War
by Leonard L. Richards
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Lincoln & Race
April 26, 2007
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What Did He Really Think About Race?
March 29, 2007
The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics
by James Oakes
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The Great Betrayal
November 30, 2006
Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War
by Nicholas Lemann
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Was It a Just War?
March 23, 2006
Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History ofthe American Civil War
by Harry S. Stout
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The Bloody Partnership
December 15, 2005
Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865
by Steven E. Woodworth
Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Won the Civil War
by Charles Bracelen Flood
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Brahmins at War
October 6, 2005
Harvard’s Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
by Richard F. Miller
The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., 1835–64
by Carol Bundy
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Days of Wrath
May 12, 2005
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
by David S. Reynolds
John Brown: The Legend Revisited
by Merrill D. Peterson
Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown
edited by Peggy A. Russo and Paul Finkelman
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Specimen Days
December 16, 2004
Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War
by Ernest B. Furgurson
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The Greatest Republican
August 12, 2004
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Him President
by John A. Corry
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
by Harold Holzer
Why Lincoln Matters Today More Than Ever
by Mario M. Cuomo
Lincoln’s Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War
by Elizabeth D. Leonard
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The Moses of Her People
March 11, 2004
Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories
by Jean M. Humez
Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero
by Kate Clifford Larson
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
by Catherine Clinton
Harriet Jacobs: A Life
by Jean Fagan Yellin
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A Confederate Guerrilla
February 27, 2003
Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
by T.J. Stiles
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Could the South Have Won?
June 13, 2002
Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America
by William C. Davis
The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War
by William W. Freehling
Lee and His Army in Confederate History
by Gary W. Gallagher
The War Hits Home: The Civil War in Southeastern Virginia
by Brian Steel Wills
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Southern Comfort
April 12, 2001
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History
edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan
Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War Charles B. Dew
The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860 Leonard L. Richards
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The Canadian Connection
February 8, 2001
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Blitzkrieg in Georgia
November 30, 2000
Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy
by Richard M. McMurry
Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865
edited by Brooks D. Simpson, by Jean V. Berlin
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The Unheroic Hero
February 4, 1999
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Lincoln’s Herndon
March 26, 1998
Lincoln Before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois Years
by Douglas L. Wilson
Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln
Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis
Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln
by Douglas L. Wilson
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The Heart of the Matter
October 23, 1997
Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War by Michael A. Morrison
Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War by Maury Klein
Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy
by Charles W. Ramsdell
The Confederate War by Gary W. Gallagher
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Götterdämmerung
December 21, 1995
The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 18611865 by Mark Grimsley
Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman
by Michael Fellman
Robert E. Lee: A Biography by Emory M. Thomas
Davis and Lee at War
by Steven E. Woodworth
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Liberating Lincoln
April 21, 1994
Lincoln in American Memory by Merrill D. Peterson
The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln by Phillip Shaw Paludan
The Lincoln Persuasion: Remaking American Liberalism by J. David Greenstone
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The Art of Abraham Lincoln
July 16, 1992
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
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How Noble Was Robert E. Lee?
November 7, 1991
Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History by Alan T. Nolan
Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 18611868 by Brooks D. Simpson
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans by Charles Royster
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Generals in Politics
March 28, 1991
Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West
by Steven E. Woodworth
Abandoned by Lincoln: A Military Biography of General John Pope by Wallace J. Schutz, by Walter N. Trenerry
Damned Yankee: The Life of General Nathaniel Lyon by Christopher Phillips
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Wartime
April 12, 1990
Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar
The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War by Iver Bernstein
Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War by Michael Fellman
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How the North Nearly Lost
October 12, 1989
Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History by Richard M. McMurry
Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers
The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 18601865 edited by Stephen W. Sears
Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander edited by Gary W. Gallagher
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The War of Southern Aggression
January 19, 1989
John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography by John Niven
Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder
edited by Carol Bleser
Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 18001860 by Lacy K. Ford Jr.
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James M. McPherson on Abraham Lincoln
September 2, 2009