Thomas Fleming is supposed to be a respected historian, and I suppose he is, but I see his writing as being rather soft. He has his footnotes and bibliography yet everything seems squishy.
This book purports to provide a new understanding of why we fought the Civil War? Must we trudge over this ground again? Probably not.
Northern abolitionists irrationally feared the "Slave Power." Really? Irrational? I am not so sure.
There is the influence of John Brown's raid. I still haven't fully understdand the effects of this traumatic incident.
The book is 'character driven" meaning that Fleming delves into the personal hitories of some people I've never heard of. I am not wild about this kind of history. Jack Rakove of Stanford writes the same kind of American history.
Extremists on boath sides led us to the war that couldn't be stopped by any other means. What peaceful solution could there have been that would have ended slavery with the 13th Amendment? I know of no such peaceful way.
This book is light and easy history but leaves no lasting impression in my mind.
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