Nation Transformed: How the Civil War Changed America Forever Book

While the Civil War frequently is called the first modern war, in reality it was very much a product of the nineteenth century, both on the battlefield and in society at large. Also called America's second revolution by some historians, the war produced changes that went far beyond military matters.

A Nation Transformed: How the Civil War Changed America Forever is a comprehensive look at the changes that the war introduced. While it may be true that many of those changes would have occurred if there had been no war, the war itself served as "the fiery crucible in which the old nation was melted down and out of which modern America was poured," as Professor William Hesseltine once wrote.

Nothing-from the nature of the presidency to the nature of social life, from how war was conducted to how public opinion was managed-escaped that fiery crucible. A Nation Transformed explores how these changes happened. Never before had Jewish rabbis been commissioned into the U.S. Army. Also new was the advent of the machine gun and timed explosive bullets, perfection of the art of propaganda, and advances in medicine and human rights. New methods were used for raising and administering armies and fighting on land, at sea, and from the air. The art of gathering intelligence and providing security, health and medical care, reporting and photographing the war, the role of the presidency and Congress, idealizing the first family, how the living and the dead were honored, political assassination-all of it was changed.

In the pages of A Nation Transformed, readers will be surprised by how deeply the war affected the nation. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that thenation was transformed by the war and would never again be the same.