Robert Cook is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Sheffield. He is the author of a number of books on American history including Sweet Land of Liberty? The African-American Struggle for Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century (Longman)

• Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Maps. Note on the Text. Prologue. Independence Day, 1854. 1. A Robber and a Jailer: The Antebellum Republic 2. Bitter Fruit of an Unjust War: The Politics of Slavery Expansion, 1848-52 3. Political Crises of the 1850s 4. The Disunited States: Secession and Civil War 5. Our Deliverance is Nigh: The Quest for Southern Independence 6. Last Full Measure of Devotion: The Union in Wartime 7. War by Any Other Name: The Struggle over Reconstruction, 1865-76 8. Land of Gold: The Far West in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 9. Reform, Reaction and Reunion at the Dawn of the Guilded Age. Conclusion. The Proving Time: The United States in the Era of the Civil War. Select Bibliography. Index.