Synopses & Reviews
Half Slave and Half Free is a powerful treatment of the basic issues and social transformations that precipitated the Civil War. In a succinct, persuasive narrative, Bruce Levine succeeds in showing how a popular basis for the Civil War developed out of the far-reaching and divisive changes in American life after the incomplete Revolution of 1776--changes that stemmed from the development of two very distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor, which eventually made sectional differences within the framework of the Union irreconcilable.
Review
"A good, clear overview of the growing divergence between North and South that culminated in Civil War. In explaining the War's origins, Levine puts the focus where it belongs: on slavery and the struggle to preserve or abolish it."--Peter Kolchin, University of Maryland
"A skillful blending of social, cultural, and political history, Half Slave and Half Free clarifies the complex connections between socioeconomic changes in the first half century of American nationhood and the coming of the Civil War."--James M. McPherson, Princeton University
About the Author
Bruce Levine, professor of American history at the University of Cincinnati, is the author of
The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War.