U.S. Civil War, Origins/Bibliography

Historiography

 * Beale, Howard K., "What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War," Social Science Research Bulletin 54, 1946.
 * Boritt, Gabor S. ed. Why the Civil War Came (1996)
 * Crofts Daniel. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989), pp 353-82 and 457-80
 * Foner, Eric. "The Causes of the American Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions." In Beyond the Civil War Synthesis: Political Essays of the Civil War Era, edited by Robert P. Swieringa. 1975.
 * Kornblith, Gary J., "Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise". Journal of American History 90.1 (2003): 80 pars. detailed historiography; online version
 * Pressly, Thomas. Americans Interpret Their Civil War (1966), sorts historians into schools of interpretation
 * SenGupta, Gunja. “Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay.” Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001/2002): 318-341.
 * Woodworth, Steven E. ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996), 750 pages of historiography; see part IV on Causation.

Needless war school

 * Craven, Avery, The Repressible Conflict, 1830-61 (1939)
 * The Coming of the Civil War (1942)
 * , "The Coming of the War Between the States," Journal of Southern History 2 (August 1936): 30-63; in JSTOR
 * Donald, David. "An Excess of Democracy: The Civil War and the Social Process" in David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era, 2d ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 209-35.
 * Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. (1978) emphasis on political parties and voters
 * Randall, James G. "A Blundering Generation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (June 1940): 3-28 in JSTOR
 * James G. Randall. The Civil War and Reconstruction. (1937), survey and statement of "needless war" interpretation
 * Pressly, Thomas J. "The Repressible Conflict," chapter 7 of Americans Interpret Their Civil War (1954).
 * Ramsdell, Charles W. "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 16 (Sept. 1929), 151-71, (in JSTOR) Ramsdell claims that slavery had almost reached its outer limits of growth by 1860, so war was unnecessary to stop further growth. online version

Economic causation and modernization

 * Beard, Charles, and Mary Beard. The Rise of American Civilization. Two volumes. (1927), says slavery was minor factor in the Civil War.
 * Huston, James L. Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property Rights, and the Economic Origins of the Civil War. (2003)
 * Luraghi, Raimondo, "The Civil War and the Modernization of American Society: Social Structure and Industrial Revolution in the Old South Before and During the War," Civil War History vol 18 (Sept. 1972). (in JSTOR)
 * McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: the Civil War and Reconstruction. (1982), uses modernization interpretation.
 * Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. (1966). modernization interpretation
 * Thornton, Mark and Robert B. Ekelund. Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War. (2004), stresses fear of future protective tariffs

Nationalism and culture

 * Crofts Daniel. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989)
 * Current, Richard. Lincoln and the First Shot (1963)
 * Nevins, Allan, author of most detailed history
 * Ordeal of the Union 2 vols. (1947) covers 1850-57.
 * The Emergence of Lincoln, 2 vols. (1950) covers 1857-61; does not take strong position on causation.
 * Olsen, Christopher J. ''Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830-1860" (2000), cultural interpretation for the origin of the war.
 * Potter, David The Impending Crisis 1848-1861. (1976), Pulitzer Prize-winning history emphasizing rise of Southern nationalism.
 * Potter, David M. Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (1942).
 * Miller, Randall M., Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. Religion and the American Civil War (1998), essays

Slavery causation

 * Ashworth, John
 * Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic. (1995)
 * "Free labor, wage labor, and the slave power: republicanism and the Republican party in the 1850s," in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway (eds), The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political and Religious Expressions, 1800-1880, pp. 128-46. (1996)
 * Donald, David et al. The Civil War and Reconstruction (latest edition 2001); 700-page survey
 * Fellman, Michael et al. This Terible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath (2003), 400-page survey
 * Foner, Eric
 * Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: the Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. (1970, 1995) stress on the role of ideology in the origins of the war.
 * Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. (1981)
 * Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 1991., emphasis on slavery
 * Gienapp William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987)
 * McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. (1988)], major overview, neo-abolitionist emphasis on slavery.
 * Morrison, Michael. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (1997)
 * Ralph E. Morrow. "The Proslavery Argument Revisited," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 1. (Jun., 1961), pp. 79-94.
 * Rhodes, James Ford History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896 Volume: 1. (1920), highly detailed narrative of the period 1850-56, volume 2 covers 1856-60; Rhodes emphasize slavery which was unique for his time.
 * Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. "The Causes of the Civil War" (1949) reprinted in his The Politics of Hope (1963); reintroduced new emphasis on slavery.
 * Stampp, Kenneth M. America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (1990)
 * Stampp, Kenneth M. And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 (1950).