‘Our political conflicts must be in future between slavery and freedom.’ Whig Congressman Joshua Giddings at the Free Soil convention in 1848 (quoted page 61)
This massive volume (900 pages) is just part of the Penguin History of America.
The civil war is far the most written-about event in American history, not least because more Americans died in it than in all other wars America has fought put together.
The civil war tore the young Republic apart, and the schism between north and southern states is in some ways still evident to this day. Certainly the bitterly divisive issue of race in America shows no signs of going away, ever.
Social background
McPherson gives a good run-up to the war with a fascinating profile of economic and social progress in America in the half century from 1800.
I was particularly struck by his interpretation of the movement of women from…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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