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

The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters is the most recent book from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson. As a leading expert on the American Civil War, McPherson organizes his collection of essays to offer an insightful perspective on the Civil War’s ongoing relevance in contemporary politics and the national psyche. Grounded in 50 years of research and published in 2015 by Oxford University Press, The War That Forged a Nation examines several dimensions of the war, including the causes of the conflict, the influence on the national identity, the moral and religious considerations, the scale of destruction, the leadership and military operations, and the international impact. A key consideration of the text is the profound influence that the American Revolution had on President Abraham Lincoln’s moral and political convictions and his need to address the nation’s issues, which in some ways remain unresolved today. The salient problems include questions of state sovereignty, racial inequality, the role of the federal government in social change, and the country’s pursuit of its founding ideals and their meaning. Moreover, McPherson articulates the Civil War’s role in transforming the national character of the United States, and discusses the significance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, which combined to form the basis for furthering civil equality for the United States’ citizens even as they expanded the power of the federal government and created a centralized polity.