"American scholarship is richer for this unique exercise. More important-the great community, . . . one again sorely beset by unsettled problems of sectional rivalry and world tension, can read this book with great profit. Too few historians put their talents at the disposal of society so effectively." -American Historical Review "A brilliant, straightforward summary of the background of America's favorite armchair war. So deceptively simple is Craven's] exposition that the solid worth of the book sneaks up on the reader when, having finished it, he realizes that the brief volume may be short on detail but is complete as a well-considered, authoritative statement of history." -Chicago Tribune "Never has he-or anyone else-analyzed the growing sectional conflict in more grapihc or understandable terms than in the present volume." -Civil War History PRAISE FOR THE BOOK "American scholarship is richer for this unique exercise. More important-the great community, . . . one again sorely beset by unsettled problems of sectional rivalry and world tension, can read this book with great profit. Too few historians put their talents at the disposal of society so effectively." -American Historical Review "A brilliant, straightforward summary of the background of America's favorite armchair war. So deceptively simple is Craven's] exposition that the solid worth of the book sneaks up on the reader when, having finished it, he realizes that the brief volume may be short on detail but is complete as a well-considered, authoritative statement of history." -Chicago Tribune "Never has he-or anyone else-analyzed the growing sectional conflict in more grapihc or understandable terms than in the present volume." -Civil War History Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History Avery O. Craven was one of our most distinguished historians of the South and taught for many years at the University of Chicago. He was the author of many books, including The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848-1861 (Volume VI of A History of the South), and Edmund Ruffin, Southerner.