The Origins of the American Civil War

To what extent was slavery the central issue, or was it a front for less principled passions and rivalries? How far did those who presided over the countdown to violence foresee the outcome, and the scale and horror of what would ensue? Brian Holden Reid sets out to answer these and other questions in his survey of the events preceding the outbreak of war in 1861, and of the vast literature to which they have since given rise.