HIST 119: The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Lecture 27 - Legacies of the Civil War
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight finishes his lecture series with a discussion of the legacies of the Civil War. Since the nineteenth century, Blight suggests, th...
Lecture 26 - Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Having dealt with the role of violence and the Supreme Court in bringing about the end of Reconstruction in his last lecture, Professor Blight now...
Lecture 25 - The "End" of Reconstruction: Disputed Election of 1876, and the "Compromise of 1877"
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture focuses on the role of white southern terrorist violence in brining about the end of Reconstruction. Professor Blight begins with an ...
Lecture 24 - Retreat from Reconstruction: The Grant Era and Paths to "Southern Redemption"
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture opens with a discussion of the myriad moments at which historians have declared an "end" to Reconstruction, before shifting to the my...
Lecture 23 - Black Reconstruction in the South: The Freedpeople and the Economics of Land and Labor
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight begins this lecture in Washington, where the passage of the first Reconstruction Act by Congressional Republicans radically alter...
Lecture 22 - Constitutional Crisis and Impeachment of a President
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight continues his discussion of the political history of Reconstruction. The central figure in the early phase of Reconstruction was ...
Lecture 21 - Andrew Johnson and the Radicals: A Contest over the Meaning of Reconstruction
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this lecture, Professor Blight begins his engagement with Reconstruction. Reconstruction, Blight suggests, might best be understood as an exten...
Lecture 20 - Wartime Reconstruction: Imagining the Aftermath and a Second American Republic
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture begins with a central, if often overlooked, turning point in the Civil War--the re-election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Although the ...
Lecture 19 - To Appomattox and Beyond: The End of the War and a Search for Meanings
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight uses Herman Melville's poem "On the Slain Collegians" to introduce the horrifying slaughter of 1864. The architect of the strateg...
Lecture 18 - "War So Terrible": Why the Union Won and the Confederacy Lost at Home and Abroad
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture probes the reasons for confederate defeat and union victory. Professor Blight begins with an elucidation of the loss-of-will thesis, ...
Lecture 17 - Homefronts and Battlefronts: "Hard War" and the Social Impact of the Civil War
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight begins his lecture with a description of the sea change in Civil War scholarship heralded by the Social History revolution of the...
Lecture 16 - Days of Jubilee: The Meanings of Emancipation and Total War
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture focuses on the process of emancipation after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation, Profe...
Lecture 15 - Lincoln, Leadership, and Race: Emancipation as Policy
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight follows Robert E. Lee's army north into Maryland during the summer of 1862, an invasion that culminated in the Battle of Antietam...
Lecture 14 - Never Call Retreat: Military and Political Turning Points in 1863
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight lectures on the military history of the early part of the war. Beginning with events in the West, Blight describes the Union vict...
Lecture 13 - Terrible Swift Sword: The Period of Confederate Ascendency, 1861-1862
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight discusses the expectations, advantages, and disadvantages with which North and South entered the Civil War. Both sides, he argues...
Lecture 12 - "And the War Came," 1861: The Sumter Crisis, Comparative Strategies
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
After finishing with his survey of the manner in which historians have explained the coming of the Civil War, Professor Blight focuses on Fort Sum...
Lecture 11 - Slavery and State Rights, Economies and Ways of Life: What Caused the Civil War?
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight begins this lecture with an attempt to answer the question "why did the South secede in 1861?" Blight offers five possible answer...
Lecture 10 - The Election of 1860 and the Secession Crisis
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This lecture picks off where the previous one left off, with a discussion of the legacies of John Brown. The most important thing about John Brown...
Lecture 9 - John Brown's Holy War: Terrorist or Heroic Revolutionary?
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight narrates the momentous events of 1857, 1858, and 1859. The lecture opens with an analysis of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates o...
Lecture 8 - Dred Scott, Bleeding Kansas, and the Impending Crisis of the Union, 1855-58
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight continues his march through the political events of the 1850s. He continues his description of the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebras...
Lecture 7 - "A Hell of a Storm": The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Birth of the Republican Party, 1854-55
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight narrates some of the important political crises of the 1850s. The lecture begins with an account of the Compromise of 1850, the s...
Lecture 6 - Expansion and Slavery: Legacies of the Mexican War and the Compromise of 1850
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this lecture, Professor Blight discusses some of the conflicts, controversies, and compromises that led up to the Civil War. After analyzing Fr...
Lecture 5 - Telling a Free Story: Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in Myth and Reality
19 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight offers an introduction to the course. He summarizes some of the course readings, and discusses the organization of the course. Pr...
Lecture 4 - A Northern World View: Yankee Society, Antislavery Ideology and the Abolition Movement
18 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Having finished with slavery and the pro-slavery argument, Professor Blight heads North today. The majority of the lecture deals with the rise of ...
Lecture 3 - A Southern World View: The Old South and Proslavery Ideology
18 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight lectures on southern slavery. He makes a case for viewing the U.S. South as one of the five true "slave societies" in world hist...
Lecture 2 - Southern Society: Slavery, King Cotton, and Antebellum America's "Peculiar" Region
17 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight offers a number of approaches to the question of southern distinctiveness. The lecture offers a survey of that manner in which c...
Lecture 1 - Introductions: Why Does the Civil War Era Have a Hold on American Historical Imagination?
17 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blight offers an introduction to the course. He summarizes some of the course readings, and discusses the organization of the course. Pr...