Antebellum America: Prelude to Civil War

Professor Steven J. Ramold, PhD: University of Nebraska – Lincoln

This course is an analysis of the conditions existing in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. The course focuses on the political, cultural/social, economic, security, leadership, and other issues that played roles in starting and shaping the Civil War. We will analyze the issues in the context of war and peace to determine whether or not such conflicts as civil wars can be avoided prior to their inception.

Required or Recommended Texts:

Stampp, Kenneth; The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South, (Knopf, 1956.)


Foner, Eric; Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War With a New Introductory Essay,
(Oxford, 1970).
Levine, Bruce; Half Slave and Half Free, Revised Edition: The Roots of Civil War, (Hill and Wang, 1992).
Holt, Michael F.; Political Crisis of the 1850s (Wiley, 1978).