The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

James McPherson (born in 1936) is an American historian who holds the position of the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton University. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who specializes in the Civil War. He earned his bachelor of arts and PhD at Gustavus Adolphus College and Johns Hopkins University, respectively. In the opening chapter, McPherson explains that he was drawn to become a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction due to his recognition of the parallels between the 1860s and the 1960s. Accordingly, McPherson’s analyses throughout the text are marked by his observation of the lasting effects of previous American conflicts in relation to the Civil War, as well as his attention to the Civil War’s impact on the civil rights movement and on contemporary American politics. 

McPherson has earned distinction as a foremost historian of the Civil War, and in 2000, he was named Jefferson Lecturer by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additionally, he has received The Lincoln Forum’s Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement, the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize. He is known for his activism in the preservation of Civil War sites and was appointed in 1991 to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission.