In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1864 (Valley of the Shadow Project) - Softcover

Ayers, Edward L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393326012 ISBN 13: 9780393326017

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004

Synopsis

Winner of the Bancroft Prize: Through a gripping narrative based on massive new research, a leading historian reshapes our understanding of the Civil War.

Our standard Civil War histories tell a reassuring story of the triumph, in an inevitable conflict, of the dynamic, free-labor North over the traditional, slave-based South, vindicating the freedom principles built into the nation's foundations.

But at the time, on the borderlands of Pennsylvania and Virginia, no one expected war, and no one knew how it would turn out. The one certainty was that any war between the states would be fought in their fields and streets.

Edward L. Ayers gives us a different Civil War, built on an intimate scale. He charts the descent into war in the Great Valley spanning Pennsylvania and Virginia. Connected by strong ties of every kind, including the tendrils of slavery, the people of this borderland sought alternatives to secession and war. When none remained, they took up war with startling intensity. As this book relays with a vivid immediacy, it came to their doorsteps in hunger, disease, and measureless death. Ayers's Civil War emerges from the lives of everyday people as well as those who helped shape history―John Brown and Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, Jackson, and Lee. His story ends with the valley ravaged, Lincoln's support fragmenting, and Confederate forces massing for a battle at Gettysburg. 27 illustrations, 1 map

About this title

About the Author:

Edward L. Ayers’s The Thin Light of Freedom completes his prize-winning history of the Civil War and its aftermath in the Great Valley that began with In the Presence of Mine Enemies. Ayers’ superb history has been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Lincoln Prize, and the Avery O. Craven Award of the Organization of American Historians. A recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President Obama, Ayers is the Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and president emeritus of the University of Richmond.

Review:

A movingly human chronicle [of]...the transformation by civil war of two groups of Americans.

Ayers unfolds this historical process with penetrating analysis and relevant quotations, emphasizing the anxiety, excitement, and misery...the war provoked.--Gilbert Taylor

Gives readers a fuller picture than they'd obtain from a more conventional micro-history....engrossing.--Ben Schwarz

This original and gracefully written work, based on exhaustive primary research, should be required reading for Civil War enthusiasts and scholars alike.--John Carver

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0393326012
• ISBN 13: 9780393326017
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496