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How does political change take hold? In the 1850s, politicians and abolitionists despaired, complaining that the "North, the poor timid, mercenary, driveling North" offered no forceful opposition to the power of the slaveholding South. And yet, as John L. Brooke proves, the North did change. Inspired by brave fugitives who escaped slavery and the cultural craze that was Uncle Tom's Cabin, the North rose up to battle slavery, ultimately waging the bloody Civil War.

While Lincoln's alleged quip about the little woman who started the big war has been oft-repeated, scholars have not fully explained the dynamics between politics and culture in the decades leading up to 1861. Rather than simply viewing the events of the 1850s through the lens of party politics, “There Is a North” is the first book to explore how cultural action—including minstrelsy, theater, and popular literature—transformed public opinion and political structures. Taking the North's rallying cry as his title, Brooke shows how the course of history was forever changed.

Unraveling the twelve months that forged modern Alabama.

To understand Alabama today, it's necessary to understand what happened in 1865. In 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace Christopher McIlwain examines the end of the Civil War and the early days of Reconstruction, tracing how the action—and inaction—of leaders in the state during those twelve months shaped the decades that followed as well as state politics today. McIlwain focuses on four factors: the immediate and unconditional emancipation of enslaved people, the destruction of Alabama’s industrial economy, significant broadening of northern support for suffrage rights for freedmen, and a long scarcity of investment capital. Each element proves important to understanding aspects of Alabama today.  

Relevant events outside Alabama are woven into the narrative, including McIlwain’s controversial argument regarding the effect of Lincoln’s assassination. Most historians assume that Lincoln favored black suffrage and that he would have led the fight to impose that on the South. But he made it clear to his cabinet members that granting suffrage rights was a matter to be decided by the southern states, not the federal government. Thus, according to McIlwain, if Lincoln had lived, black suffrage would not have been the issue it became in Alabama.

In his fresh analysis of what really happened in Alabama in 1865 and why—McIlwain illuminates that Alabama's challenges were neither entirely the fault of northern or southern policies but rather the complex interaction between the two.