A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia, and the Making of Reconstruction (Civil War America)

Summers, Mark Wahlgren

ISBN 10: 0807833045 / ISBN 13: 9780807833049

Published by The University of North Carolina Press (edition 1), 2009

About this Item

With dust jacket. The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way.

Seller Inventory # 0807833045-7-1-29

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia, and the Making of Reconstruction (Civil War America)
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (edition 1)
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807833045
• ISBN 13: 9780807833049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1.
• Condition: Fair
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Reconstruction policy after the Civil War, notes Mark Wahlgren Summers, was shaped not simply by politics, principles, and prejudices. Also at work were fears--often unreasonable fears of renewed civil war and a widespread sense that four years of war had thrown the normal constitutional process so dangerously out of kilter that the republic itself remained in peril. To understand Reconstruction, Summers contends, one must understand that the purpose of the North's war was--first and foremost--to save the Union with its republican institutions intact. During Reconstruction there were always fears in the mix--that the Civil War had settled nothing, that the Union was still in peril, and that its enemies and the enemies of republican government were more resilient and cunning than normal mortals. Many factors shaped the reintegration of the former Confederate states and the North's commitment to Reconstruction, Summers agrees, but the fears of war reigniting, plots against liber

About the Author

Mark Wahlgren Summers is Thomas D. Clark Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. He is the author of seven books, including Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 and Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (both UNC Press).