A House Divided: The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

“A House Divided fills a valuable niche in the market…it provides an engaging blend of political, social, and cultural history in a manageable page count.” Scott Stephan, Ball State University

“I like this textbook very much. The writing is clear, concise and accessible. The subsections are well-chosen and the narrative never drags, but carries the reader through each topic without slighting detail or getting lost in digressions. It is exceptionally well-written for college undergraduate readers. It also incorporates the latest scholarship effectively, and provides very useful bibliographies at the end of each chapters. For use-value, I think students will prefer this textbook to any one that I have used previously.” Mark Elliott, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

“A House Divided accomplished the difficult task of blending topics and chronology in a clear and engaging way.” John Condon, Merrimack College

1. Susan-Mary Grant, University of Newcastle, UK: “The proposal is fine; it offers a couple of chapters (on ‘culture’ & ‘home fronts’) that some don’t offer….; I DO think he needs to bring in gender stuff more, not least because folks at community colleges trying to juggle study & family tend to be female (still) and they would react more positively to material on women & families etc than to yet another brief intro to Lincoln (on which books abound!) So maybe a shift around of chapters would be in order; one on sectionalism rather than two, leaving space for two on the ‘home front’: white women and families etc North and South; African American Civil War North and South. It would allow the author to reference the newest work coming out (on masculinity; on the transition from slavery to freedom etc) but in a way accessible to the market you have in mind.

I should say that outside the US specifically, your main competitor are those little short books on the Civil War by Alan Farmer (published by Hodder Arnold) which are designed very much as study guides (there are three, I think, but may be more now; one on pre-war; one on war; one on Reconstruction). They are DEADLY DULL and are more likely to confuse than enthuse. Yes, they have all the requisite ‘questions to think about’ but who would want to think about them is a mystery; you have to enthuse readers and then they’ll ask the questions, which is why I stress the idea of Jon playing to his strengths and not trying too hard to write a ‘book to pass exams with.'”

• Michael Powell, Frederick Community College: “Professor Wells has identified a niche in the marketplace for CW courses at the college level: an accessible, one-volume work, incorporating the latest in historiography and directed toward both 4 year schools as well as community colleges…With strong interest in the CW, and a dearth of options in the CW textbook market, the future looks bright for a text such as that suggested by Professor Wells.”

• Michael Dolski, Broward Community College: “I believe that there is an excellent market for a single volume textbook on the American Civil War. CW courses are offered in most colleges and universities and are big draws in terms of student enrollment….the author presents a simple, straightforward approach that will not overly confound students. Dr. Wells has a few ideas that are particularly meritorious.”

4. Brooks Simpson, Arizona State University: “In contrast to most of the competition, this text does have the merit of looking at American society at war instead of the more traditional political/military narrative. However, it shows no signs of integrating these two aspects of the war, and scholarship is now talking about the interaction of the two.

Jonathan Daniel Wells is Associate Professor of History and History Department Chair at Temple University.