Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Battle Cry of Freedom covers the two decades from the Mexican American War through the surrender at Appomattox, integrating politics, economics, military strategy, and social change into one propulsive narrative. James McPherson is unusually good at making causes and campaigns readable, and he balances the war on the ground with the arguments over slavery, Kansas, Dred Scott, and secession that produced it. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1989 and has been the default one volume history of the Civil War ever since. It is the book historians most often recommend to intelligent general readers, and it is also a genuine page turner. Few histories of any subject combine authority and drive at this level.
What you might want to know about Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
James McPherson's Pulitzer winning single volume history of the Civil War era, widely considered the best modern account of the conflict.
Yes. Coates has repeatedly cited Battle Cry of Freedom as foundational to his understanding of the Civil War and slavery, referring readers to McPherson in his Atlantic essays and in interviews about The Case for Reparations.
McPherson is a mainstream academic historian who takes slavery seriously as the cause of the war, and Confederate apologists have criticized him. Most readers consider the book careful and rigorous, not partisan.
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era was written by James M. McPherson, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press.
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is 952 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era takes most readers 14 to 21 hours to finish.
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.