The Imagined Civil War

“[A] sparkling study. . . . The most intriguing aspect . . . is its discussion of magazine stories and books written for children which not only shaped their perceptions of the earthshaking events of their youth but also influenced their worldview as adults during the postwar era.” — James McPherson, The Wall Street Journal, 'Five Best Books on the Civil War away from the battlefield'

“The subject is fascinating. . . . The author finds enduring truths and themes that have evaded historians and novelists who are still waiting, unsatisfied with Gone with the Wind as the great literary epic or novel of the Civil War. . . . Fahs has illuminated a fresh aspect of America’s greatest drama.” — Washington Times

“[A] fascinating book. . . . One of the major strengths of this fine book is Fahs’s insightful discussion of the changing image of black people in Northern popular literature. . . . Fahs has . . . managed to give us new and valuable insights into the wartime South, and her treatment of Northern popular literature is a signal contribution to our understanding of Civil War America.” — New York Times Book Review

“Informative, original and engaging.” — Southern Literary Journal

“[Earns] a place on every nineteenth-century literary theorist and Civil War historian’s bookshelf. . . . Fahs makes a brilliant argument for the significance of popular culture in the war.” — American Historical Review

“Alice Fahs makes a valuable contribution to the trend of studying the war in its larger context in The Imagined Civil War.” — History of Education Quarterly

“[A] widely researched and elegantly written work. . . . Fahs makes a brilliant argument for the significance of popular culture in the war. Her work will undoubtedly open the door to a more engaged and informed discussion of the role of cultural forms, especially popular cultural forms, in what we now tend to see almost entirely as the consequence of the political and military history of the Civil War.” — American Historical Review

“A strong book with engaging prose, dramatic verbs, and subtle humor. Fahs’s argument challenges the prevailing belief that the war organized a new dominant nationalism.” — Journal of Southern History

“Fahs’s book fills the niche on Civil War literature in describing the warring literary face-off during the bloodiest conflict in the American history.” — American Studies International

“Immensely valuable. . . . An important contribution even to overburdened Civil War bookshelves. . . . [Fahs] has raised popular literary expression to a visible source; using this literature, she has provided answers to what the war’s meaning was; and finally she has established categorical conceptualizations that will remain useful benchmarks for subsequent studies of the Civil War.” — Journal of American History