The United States developed an
exceptional system of slavery
which led to an exceptional civil war
and left an exceptional legacy.

Praise from Reviewers

“Strickler’s genius is to cast this quintessential American story of slavery and civil war onto a vast, cosmopolitan stage while combining it with a collection of vivid personal stories that make his telling both intelligible and captivating.”—Don H. Doyle, McCausland Professor of History, Emeritus, University of South Carolina

 “Strickler offers particularly perceptive ideas about why and how southern enslavers used exceptional force to try and protect the institution of slavery and to reestablish white supremacy in ways with lasting legacies for Black people and for all of United States history.”—Sarah Purcell, L.F. Parker Professor of History, Grinnell College

“It comparatively delineates what was ‘exceptional’ about our experience and what wasn’t. I recommend it highly.”—Paul B. Fischer, emeritus professor, Department of Politics, Lake Forest College

“Strickler has done the near-impossible: offered a fresh take on the most written-about topic in U.S. history.”—Deborah R. Weiner, former research historian at the Jewish Museum of Maryland

 “An eye-opening, much-needed examination of the idea of American exceptionalism.”—Patrick T. Reardon, journalist, historian, and former member of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Board

 “[Makes] the insights of modern historians accessible to a wider audience.”—Robert B. Mitchell, journalist and historian

“It places the American Civil War in a much broader context of world history . . . A distinctive contribution to the field.”—Gerard Quinn, professor of law at the University of Leeds and University of Lund

“A case study that all who love our country would be well-served by reading. . . . It is our story!”—David Hunt, founder of the Community Building Storytelling Project