American Civil War

In The Demon of Unrest, author Erik Larson chronicles the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the start of the Civil War, drawing parallels to today's political climate.

Drew Gilpin Faust, is best known as the first woman to be president of Harvard, a position she held from 2007 to 2018, and for her books about the Civil War. Her memoir is called "Necessary Trouble: Growing Up At Midcentury."

Trotter was a Black newspaper editor in the early 20th century who advocated for civil rights by organizing mass protests. Historian Kerri Greenidge tells his story in her new book.

Atlantic writer Clint Smith grew up surrounded by Confederate iconography, being told that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. He shares a poem from his forthcoming book, How the Word Is Passed.

Horwitz, who died Monday, spoke to Fresh Air in '98 about Confederates in the Attic, his book about the legacy of the Civil War. Plus, Maureen Corrigan reviews his latest book, Spying on the South.

Journalist Brian Palmer toured several Confederate sites and monuments across the South and found a distorted message that celebrates the Confederacy and often omits the fact of slavery all together.

In a new book, Civil War historian Bruce Levine says that from the destruction of the South emerged an entirely new country, making the Civil War equivalent to a second American Revolution. Integral to the Union's victory, he says, were the nearly 200,000 black soldiers who enlisted.

In The Long Road to Antietam, historian Richard Slotkin traces how both Northern and Southern strategies changed in the summer of 1862, when both sides committed to an all-out total war, and Lincoln squared off against Gen. George McClellan.

Tuesday marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War. Historian Adam Goodheart explains how national leaders and ordinary citizens across the country responded to the chaos and uncertainty in 1861: The Civil War Awakening.

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust writes that Civil War deaths — both their number and their manner — transformed America. Her new book is This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.