Between Extremes - (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) by Jack Furniss (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Between 1861 and 1865, northern voters fortified Abraham Lincoln's administration as it oversaw the end of the institution of slavery and an unprecedented expansion in the size and scope of the federal government. Since the United States never considered suspending the democratic process during the Civil War, these revolutionary developments--indeed the entire war effort--depended on ballots as much as bullets. Why did civilians who, at the start of the conflict, had not anticipated or desired these transformations to their society nonetheless vote to uphold them? Jack Furniss's Between Extremes proposes an answer to this question by revealing a potent strand of centrist politics that took hold across the Union and provided the conservative rationales that allowed most northerners to accept the war's radical outcomes.

Review Quotes

"Between Extremes offers an engaging, original, and insightful survey of Civil War-era politics. Refuting a common depiction of deep-seated animosity between the Republican and Democratic parties and their respective voters, Furniss persuasively highlights the existence of a powerful political center that sustained, through many hard times, the attempts to save the Union and ensure its military victory in 1865."--Joan Waugh, author of U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth

"A scintillating explanation of how, during the political turbulence of the Civil War, the American Union's key state governors harnessed the electoral muscle of conservative centrist patriotism. Furniss's astute examination, fresh in conception and compelling in argument, rightly casts the malleable Union party coalitions as essential to Lincoln's purposes and national survival. Quite simply, a lasting gem of a book."--Richard Carwardine, author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power

"In this groundbreaking study of Civil War politics in states loyal to the Union, Jack Furniss shows how conservative centrists led coalition governments committed to fighting the war along constitutional lines with preservation of the Union as their foremost goal. Between Extremes is an important book that reinterprets how the Union held together during its greatest challenge."--Frank Towers, author of The Urban South and the Coming of the Civil War

About the Author

Jack Furniss is head of the history and politics department at an independent secondary school in London, England. He has graduate degrees in history from the University of Oxford and the University of Virginia.