Description

A profound and timely examination of the moral underpinnings of the War Between the States

The Civil War was not only a war of armies but also a war of ideas, in which Union and Confederacy alike identified itself as a moral nation with God on its side. In this watershed book, Harry S. Stout measures the gap between those claims and the war’s actual conduct. Ranging from the home front to the trenches and drawing on a wealth of contemporary documents, Stout explores the lethal mix of propaganda and ideology that came to justify slaughter on and off the battlefield. At a time when our country is once again at war, Upon the Altar of the Nation is a deeply necessary book.

About the Author

Harry Stout is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History, having been Professor here since 1986. He taught previously at the University of Connecticut. He has received numerous grants and fellowships, including Mellon, NEH, and Guggenheim fellowships. He is General Editor ofThe Works of Jonathan Edwardsand General Editor of theReligion in Americaseries at Oxford University Press. He also serves as editor toCobblestone Magazine,Studies in Puritan American Spirituality, andAmerican National Biography.In addition to numerous articles, he has authored or co-authored the following books:The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England(Pulitizer Prize finalist);An Enemy Among Them;The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism(Pulitzer Prize nominee);A New England Congregation: First Church, New Haven, 1638-1988; andUpon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the American Civil War(2006) . Books he has edited or co-edited are:Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience;Jonathan Edwards;Dictionary of Christianity in America; andBenjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the American Experience.Professor Stout also was the Rogers Distinguished Fellow at the Huntington Library, 2011-2012.