Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War

By Bruce Levine

Book Overview

Half Slave and Half Free is a powerful treatment of the basic issues and social transformations that precipitated the Civil War. In a succinct, persuasive narrative, Bruce Levine succeeds in showing how a popular basis for the Civil War developed out of the far-reaching and divisive changes in American life after the incomplete Revolution of 1776--changes that stemmed from the development of two very distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor, which eventually made sectional differences within the framework of the Union irreconcilable.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374523096
• ISBN13: 9780374523091
• Release Date: April 1992
• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous book

This is a wonderful book that is great in the classroom. It is readable with terrific statistics to show the divergences between the North and the South before the Civil War. I have used it in class and my students got a lot out of it.

Thorough, insightful.

Rarely, do I get excited about classroom readings however, Bruce Levine's Half Slave and Half Free is an insightful look at a pivtoal time in the history of the United States. Levine's argument in the text is that the deep regional divide which came to inspire the Civil War, was not founded on the principle of slavery but rather the contrast in the socioeconomic structures. An excellent look at the post revolutionary and pre Civil War United States.

The other side of the Civil War, The View of Blacks by South

levine does a good job on this book.his research is pretty well. he documentsthat the civil war was just about an economic cycle, a cycle of money for thewhite southern man, the rich man to be precise.i like this book, because there is an inner worldthat usually never gets talked about, but levine proves that the cycle of racism and hatred by the white man toward the black female and male wereintense.literature is highly recommended.

An excellent book on the origins of the Civil War.

An easy to read historical book dealing with the origins of the Civil War. Dr. Levine is succinct and thought-provoking in his analysis. Imploying political, economical, and social factors, Levine explores attitudes and conditions in both the North and South. Professor Levine's concentraion on social aspects and their effects on the "average" American is refreshing. I had the pleasure of studying and being instructed in this subject with Professor Levine while a student at the University of Cincinnati, while he still taught at that institution. This is an excellent book for this subject. I would also reccommend in this area: "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Man," by Eric Foner; and "James Henry Hammond and the Old South, A Design for Mastery," by Drew Gilpin Faust.