Views of the Future State examines shifting conceptions of the afterlife among literate inhabitants of the antebellum and Civil War-era Deep South. The relatively static 1820 views of a dualistic heaven and hell took on a vibrant complexity by 1865. The challenges of scientific discoveries, universalism, mesmerism, spiritualism, Swedenborgianism, and finally war encouraged bold questioning. Southerners no longer focused primarily on how...