Edited by Ben Wright & Zachary W. Dresser
In the Civil War era, Americans nearly unanimously accepted
that humans battled in a cosmic contest between good and evil and that God was
directing history toward its end. The concept of God's Providence and of
millennialism -- Christian anticipations of the end of the world -- dominated
religious thought in the nineteenth century. During the tumultuous years
immediately prior to, during, and after the war, these ideas took on a greater
importance as Americans struggled with the unprecedented destruction and
promise of the period.
Scholars of religion, literary critics, and especially
historians have acknowledged the presence of apocalyptic thought in the era,
but until now, few studies have taken the topic as their central focus or
examined it from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. By doing so, the
essays in Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era highlight
the diverse ways in which beliefs about the end times influenced
nineteenth-century American lives, including reform culture, the search for
meaning amid the trials of war, and the social transformation wrought by
emancipation. Millennial zeal infused the labor of reformers and explained
their successes and failures as progress toward an imminent Kingdom of God. Men
and women in the North and South looked to Providence to explain the causes and
consequences of both victory and defeat, and Americans, black and white, experienced
the shock waves of emancipation as either a long-prophesied jubilee or a
vengeful punishment. Religion fostered division as well as union, the essays
suggest, but while the nation tore itself apart and tentatively stitched itself
back together, Americans continued looking to divine intervention to make
meaning of the national apocalypse.
Contributors: Edward J. BlumRyan CordellZachary W.
DresserJennifer GraberMatthew HarperCharles F. IronsJoseph MooreRobert K.
NelsonScott Nesbit Jason PhillipsNina Reid-MaroneyBen Wright
ISBN 978-0807151921, Louisiana State University Press, ©
2013, Hardcover, 296 Pages, Chapter End Notes & Index. $42.50. To Purchase the book click HERE.
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