When Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Walt Whitman declared it "the volcanic upheaval of the nation"--the bloody inception of a war that would dramatically alter the shape and character of American culture along with its political, racial, and social landscape. Prior to the war, America's leading writers had been integral to helping the young nation imagine itself, assert its beliefs, and realize its immense potential. When the Civil War erupted, it forced them to witness not only unimaginable human carnage on the battlefield, but also the disintegration of the foundational symbolic order they had helped to create. The war demanded new frameworks for understanding the world and new forms of communication that could engage with the immensity of the conflict. It fostered both social and cultural experimentation. Now available in paperback, From Battlefields Rising explores the profound impact of the war on writers including Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Frederick Douglass. As the writers of the time grappled with the war's impact on the individual and the national psyche, their responses multiplied and transmuted. Whitman's poetry and prose, for example, was chastened and deepened by his years spent ministering to wounded soldiers; off the battlefield, the anguish of war would come to suffuse the austere, elliptical poems that Emily Dickinson was writing from afar; and Hawthorne was rendered silent by his reading of military reports and talks with soldiers. Calling into question every prior presumption and ideal, the war forever changed America's early idealism-and consequently its literature-into something far more ambivalent and raw. An absorbing group portrait of the period's most important writers, From Battlefields Rising flashes with forgotten historical details and elegant new ideas. It alters previous perceptions about the evolution of American literature and how Americans have understood and expressed their common history.

When Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Walt Whitman declared it "the volcanic upheaval of the nation"--the bloody inception of a war that would dramatically alter the shape and character of American culture along with its political, racial, and social landscape. Prior to the war, America's leading writers had been integral to helping the young nation imagine itself, assert its beliefs, and realize its immense potential. When the Civil War erupted, it forced them to witness not only unimaginable human carnage on the battlefield, but also the disintegration of the foundational symbolic order they had helped to create. The war demanded new frameworks for understanding the world and new forms of communication that could engage with the immensity of the conflict. It fostered both social and cultural experimentation.From Battlefields Rising explores the profound impact of the war on writers including Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Frederick Douglass. As the writers of the time grappled with the war's impact on the individual and the national psyche, their responses multiplied and transmuted. Whitman's poetry and prose, for example, was chastened and deepened by his years spent ministering to wounded soldiers; off the battlefield, the anguish of war would come to suffuse the austere, elliptical poems that Emily Dickinson was writing from afar; and Hawthorne was rendered silent by his reading of military reports and talks with soldiers. Calling into question every prior presumption and ideal, the war forever changed America's early idealism-and consequently its literature-into something far more ambivalent and raw.Sketching an absorbing group portrait of the period's most important writers, From Battlefields Rising flashes with forgotten historical details and elegant new ideas. It alters previous perceptions about the evolution of American literature and how Americans have understood and expressed their common history.

A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.

For nearly three years, Walt Whitman immersed himself in the devastation of the Civil War, tending to thousands of wounded soldiers and recording his experiences with an immediacy and compassion unequaled in wartime literature anywhere in the world. In The Better Angel, acclaimed biographer Roy Morris, Jr. gives us the fullest account of Whitman's profoundly transformative Civil War years and an historically invaluable examination of the Union's treatment of its sick and wounded. Whitman was mired in depression as the war began, subsisting on journalistic hackwork, his "great career" as a poet apparently stalled. But when news came that his brother George had been wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman rushed south to find him. Deeply affected by his first view of the war's casualties, he began visiting the camp's wounded and found his calling for the duration of the war. Three years later, he emerged as the war's "most unlikely hero," a living symbol of American democratic ideals of sharing and brotherhood. Brilliantly researched and beautifully written, The Better Angel explores a side of Whitman not fully examined before, one that greatly enriches our understanding of his later poetry. Moreover, it gives us a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the "other army"--the legions of sick and wounded soldiers who are usually left in the shadowy background of Civil War history--seen here through the unflinching eyes of America's greatest poet.

TRAVEL THROUGH A PIVOTAL TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY Jeff Shaara, America’s premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of the ten Civil War battlefields every American should visit: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Market, Chickamauga, the Wilderness/Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg/Appomattox. Shaara explores the history, the people, and the places that capture the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict and provides • engaging narratives of the war’s crucial battles • intriguing historical footnotes about each site • photographs of the locations–then and now • detailed maps of the battle scenes • fascinating sidebars with related points of interest From Antietam to Gettysburg to Vicksburg, and to the many poignant destinations in between, Jeff Shaara’s Civil War Battlefields is the ideal guide for casual tourists and Civil War enthusiasts alike.

The battle of iSandlwana was the single most destructive incident in the 150-year history of the British colonization of South Africa. This title shows that the brutality of the battle was the result of an inevitable clash between two aggressive warrior traditions.

This study examines the way influential 20th century critics have understood and deployed Emerson as part of their own larger projects aimed at reconceiving America