U.S. Civil War, Origins/Bibliography

Please sort and annotate in a user-friendly manner. For formatting, consider using automated reference wikification.

Primary sources

• Freehling, William W. and Craig M. Simpson, eds. Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860 (1992), speeches
• Hesseltine; William B. ed. The Tragic Conflict: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1962), primary documents
• Perman, Michael, ed. Major Problems in Civil War & Reconstruction (2nd ed. 1998) primary and secondary sources.
• Stampp, Kenneth, ed. The Causes of the Civil War (3rd ed 1992), primary and secondary sources.
• Wakelyn; Jon L. ed. Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861 (1996)

Historiography

• Beale, Howard K., "What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War," Social Science Research Bulletin 54, 1946.
• Boritt, Gabor S. ed. Why the Civil War Came (1996)
• Crofts Daniel. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989), pp 353-82 and 457-80
• Foner, Eric. "The Causes of the American Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions." In Beyond the Civil War Synthesis: Political Essays of the Civil War Era, edited by Robert P. Swieringa. 1975.
• Kornblith, Gary J., "Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise". Journal of American History 90.1 (2003): 80 pars. detailed historiography; online version
• Pressly, Thomas. Americans Interpret Their Civil War (1966), sorts historians into schools of interpretation
• SenGupta, Gunja. “Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay.” Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001/2002): 318-341.
• Woodworth, Steven E. ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996), 750 pages of historiography; see part IV on Causation.

Needless war school

• Craven, Avery, The Repressible Conflict, 1830-61 (1939)
  • The Coming of the Civil War (1942)
  • , "The Coming of the War Between the States," Journal of Southern History 2 (August 1936): 30-63; in JSTOR
• Donald, David. "An Excess of Democracy: The Civil War and the Social Process" in David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era, 2d ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 209-35.
• Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. (1978) emphasis on political parties and voters
• Randall, James G. "A Blundering Generation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (June 1940): 3-28 in JSTOR
• James G. Randall. The Civil War and Reconstruction. (1937), survey and statement of "needless war" interpretation
• Pressly, Thomas J. "The Repressible Conflict," chapter 7 of Americans Interpret Their Civil War (1954).
• Ramsdell, Charles W. "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 16 (Sept. 1929), 151-71, (in JSTOR) Ramsdell claims that slavery had almost reached its outer limits of growth by 1860, so war was unnecessary to stop further growth. online version

Economic causation and modernization

• Beard, Charles, and Mary Beard. The Rise of American Civilization. Two volumes. (1927), says slavery was minor factor in the Civil War.
• Huston, James L. Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property Rights, and the Economic Origins of the Civil War. (2003)
• Luraghi, Raimondo, "The Civil War and the Modernization of American Society: Social Structure and Industrial Revolution in the Old South Before and During the War," Civil War History vol 18 (Sept. 1972). (in JSTOR)
• McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: the Civil War and Reconstruction. (1982), uses modernization interpretation.
• Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. (1966). modernization interpretation
• Thornton, Mark and Robert B. Ekelund. Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War. (2004), stresses fear of future protective tariffs

Nationalism and culture

• Crofts Daniel. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989)
• Current, Richard. Lincoln and the First Shot (1963)
• Nevins, Allan, author of most detailed history
  • Ordeal of the Union 2 vols. (1947) covers 1850-57.
  • The Emergence of Lincoln, 2 vols. (1950) covers 1857-61; does not take strong position on causation.
• Olsen, Christopher J. Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830-1860" (2000), cultural interpretation for the origin of the war.
• Potter, David The Impending Crisis 1848-1861. (1976), Pulitzer Prize-winning history emphasizing rise of Southern nationalism.
• Potter, David M. Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (1942).
• Miller, Randall M., Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. Religion and the American Civil War (1998), essays

Slavery causation

• Ashworth, John
  • Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic. (1995)
  • "Free labor, wage labor, and the slave power: republicanism and the Republican party in the 1850s," in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway (eds), The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political and Religious Expressions, 1800-1880, pp. 128-46. (1996)
• Donald, David et al. The Civil War and Reconstruction (latest edition 2001); 700-page survey
• Fellman, Michael et al. This Terible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath (2003), 400-page survey
• Foner, Eric
  • Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: the Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. (1970, 1995) stress on the role of ideology in the origins of the war.
  • Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. (1981)
• Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 1991., emphasis on slavery
• Gienapp William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987)
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. (1988)], major overview, neo-abolitionist emphasis on slavery.
• Morrison, Michael. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (1997)
• Ralph E. Morrow. "The Proslavery Argument Revisited," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 1. (Jun., 1961), pp. 79-94.
• Rhodes, James Ford History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896 Volume: 1. (1920), highly detailed narrative of the period 1850-56, volume 2 covers 1856-60; Rhodes emphasize slavery which was unique for his time.
• Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. "The Causes of the Civil War" (1949) reprinted in his The Politics of Hope (1963); reintroduced new emphasis on slavery.
• Stampp, Kenneth M. America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (1990)
• Stampp, Kenneth M. And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 (1950).