Drew Gilpin Faust

This Republic of Suffering

by Drew Gilpin Faust

Hardcover

“No other generation of Americans has encountered death on the scale of the Civil War generation. This Republic of Suffering is the first study of how people in both North and South coped with this uniquely devastating experience. How did they mourn the dead, honor their sacrifice, commemorate their memory, and help their families? Drew Gilpin Faust’s powerful and moving answers to these questions provide an important new dimension to our understanding of the Civil War.”—James M. McPherson, author of This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War “Whitman was wrong; the real war did get into the books. This is a wise, informed, troubling book. This Republic of Suffering demolishes sentimentalism for the Civil War in a masterpiece of research, realism, and originality.”—David W. Blight, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory “Timely, poignant and profound, This Republic of Suffering does the real work of history, taking us beyond the statistics until we see the faces of the fallen, and understand what it was to live amid such loss and pain.”—Tony Horowitz, author of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War “A moving work of social history, detailing how the Civil War changed perceptions and behaviors about death…. An illuminating study.”—Kirkus Reviews “Penetrating…. Faust exhumes a wealth of material…to flesh out her lucid account. The result is an insightful, often moving portrait of a people torn by grief.”—Publishers Weekly more...