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In the Cause of Liberty: How the Civil War Redefined American Ideals. Edited by William J. Cooper Jr. and John M. McCardell Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press with the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, 2009. Pp. [x], 195. $27.95, ISBN 978-0-8071-3444-3.)
On the eve of the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. this timely collection of essays by some of the leading historians of the period provides a state-of-the-art summary of current scholarship. Nine essays divide into three main themes: understanding the causes of the breakup of the Union; race, nation, and the different meanings of. and processes set in motion by, the war; and making sense of the conflict in the politics and memory of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Together, these essays set an agenda from which students and general readers can interpret the dynamics, the transforming influences, and the significance of the Civil War from a number of different perspectives. Specialists will not find too many surprises here but will find more than enough to keep them interested. Coming out of a symposium held in 2007 at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, an appropriate setting in the heart of the former Confederate capital, In the Cause of Liberty: How the Civil War Redefined American Ideals emphasizes why it is important to commemorate the defining event of the modern United States. The volume also underscores...