“Concise, engaging . . . [A] superb study of the US Catholic community in the Civil War era.” —Civil War Book Review Anti-Catholicism has had a long presence in American history. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, many Catholic Americans considered it a chance to prove their patriotism once and for all. Exploring how Catholics sought to use their participation in the war to counteract religious and political nativism in the United States, Excommunicated from the Union reveals that while the war was an alienating experience for many of the 200,000 Catholics who served, they still strove to construct a positive memory of their experiences—in order to show that their religion was no barrier to their being loyal American citizens. “[A] masterful interrogation of the fusion of faith, national crisis, and ethnic identity at a critical moment in American history. This is a notable and welcome contribution to Catholic, Civil War, and immigrant history.”? Journal of Southern History

“Students of the Civil War, Catholic history, and women’s history, among others, will welcome [Soldiers of the Cross] . . . Brilliantly edited.” —Randall M. Miller, co-editor of Religion and the American Civil War Shortly after the Civil War, an Irish Catholic journalist and war veteran named David Power Conyngham began compiling the stories of Catholic chaplains and nuns who served during the conflict. His manuscript, Soldiers of the Cross, is the fullest record written during the nineteenth century of the Catholic Church’s involvement in the Civil War, as it documents the service of fourteen chaplains and six female religious communities, representing both North and South. Many of Conyngham’s chapters contain new insights into the clergy during the war that are unavailable elsewhere, either during his time or ours, making the work invaluable to Catholic and Civil War historians. The introduction contains over a dozen letters written between 1868 and 1870 from high-ranking Confederate and Union officials, such as Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Union Surgeon General William Hammond, and Union General George B. McClellan, who praise the church’s services during the war. Chapters on Fathers William Corby and Peter P. Cooney, as well as the Sisters of the Holy Cross, cover subjects relatively well known to Catholic scholars, yet other chapters are based on personal letters and other important primary sources that have not been published prior to this book. Due to Conyngham’s untimely death, Soldiers of the Cross remained unpublished, hidden away in an archive for more than a century. Now annotated and edited so as to be readable and useful to scholars and modern readers, this long-awaited publication of Soldiers of the Cross is a fitting presentation of Conyngham’s last great work

Anti-Catholicism has had a long presence in American history. The Civil War in 1861 gave Catholic Americans a chance to prove their patriotism once and for all. Exploring how Catholics sought to use their participation in the war to counteract religious and political nativism in the United States, Excommunicated from the Union reveals that while the war was an alienating experience for many of 200,000 Catholics who served, they still strove to construct a positive memory of their experiences in order to show that their religion was no barrier to their being loyal American citizens.

Abortion has remained one of the most volatile and polarizing issues in the United States for over four decades. Americans are more divided today than ever over abortion, and this debate colors the political, economic, and social dynamics of the country. This book provides a balanced, clear-eyed overview of the abortion debate, including the perspectives of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. It covers the history of the debate from colonial times to the present, the mobilization of mass movements around the issue, the ways it is understood by ordinary Americans, the impact it has had on US political development, and the differences between the abortion conflict in the US and the rest of the world. Throughout these discussions, Ziad Munson demonstrates how the meaning of abortion has shifted to reflect the changing anxieties and cultural divides which it has come to represent. Abortion Politics is an invaluable companion for exploring the abortion issue and what it has to say about American society, as well as the dramatic changes in public understanding of women’s rights, medicine, religion, and partisanship.

When the field of Canadian history underwent major shifts in the 1990s, international history became marginalized and the focus turned away from foreign affairs. Over the past decade, however, the study of Canada and the world has been revitalized. Undiplomatic History charts these changes, bringing together leading and emerging historians of Canadian international and transnational relations to take stock of recent developments and to outline the course of future research. Following global trends in the wider historiography, contributors explore new lenses of historical analysis – such as race, gender, political economy, identity, religion, and the environment – and emphasize the relevance of non-state actors, including scientists, athletes, students, and activists. The essays in this volume challenge old ways of thinking and showcase how an exciting new generation of historians are asking novel questions about Canadians' interactions with people and places beyond the country's borders. From human rights to the environment, and from medical internationalism to transnational feminism, Undiplomatic History maps out a path toward a vibrant and inclusive understanding of what constitutes Canadian foreign policy in an age of global connectivity.

How did Southern Catholics, under international religious authority and grounding unlike Southern Protestants, act with regard to political commitments in the recently formed Confederacy? How did they balance being both Catholic and Confederate? How is the Southern Catholic Civil War experience similar or dissimilar to the Southern Protestant Civil War experience? What new insights might this experience provide regarding Civil War religious history, the history of Catholicism in America, 19th-century America, and Southern history in general? For the majority of Southern Catholics, religion and politics were not a point of tension. Devout Catholics were also devoted Confederates, including nuns who served as nurses; their deep involvement in the Confederate cause as medics confirms the all-encompassing nature of Catholic involvement in the Confederacy, a fact greatly underplayed by scholars of Civil war religion and American Catholicism. Kraszewski argues against an "Americanization" of Catholics in the South and instead coins the term "Confederatization" to describe the process by which Catholics made themselves virtually indistinguishable from their Protestant neighbors. The religious history of the South has been primarily Protestant. Catholic Confederates simultaneously fills a gap in Civil War religious scholarship and in American Catholic literature by bringing to light the deep impact Catholicism has had on Southern society even in the very heart of the Bible Belt.