Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War (Vintage Civil War Library) - Softcover

Klein, Professor Of History Maury

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679768823 ISBN 13: 9780679768821

Publisher: Vintage, 1999

Synopsis

"Illuminating and well-written. . . . Deserves a place in the highest ranks of Civil War scholarship."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

In November 1860, telegraph lines carried the news that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. Over the next five months the United States drifted, stumbled, and finally plunged into the most destructive war this country has ever faced. With a masterful eye for telling detail, Maury Klein provides fascinating new insights into the period from the election of Abraham Lincoln to the shelling of Fort Sumter.

Klein brings the key players in the tragedy unforgettably to life: from the vacillating lame-duck President Buchanan, to the taciturn, elusive, and relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln; from Secretary of State Seward carrying on his own private negotiations with the South, to Major Robert Anderson sitting in his island fortress awaiting reinforcements. Never has this immensely significant moment in our national story been so intelligently of so spellbindingly related.

About this title

About the Author:

Maury Klein is renowned as one of the finest historians of American business and economy. He is the author of many books, including A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II; The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America; and Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929. He is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Rhode Island. Klein lives in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.

Synopsis:

Examines the extraordinary events that led up to the Civil War, from Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election victory, through governmental gridlock, Southern threats to secede, and the machinations of an ambitious William Steward, to the fall of Fort Sumter. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0679768823
• ISBN 13: 9780679768821
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528