Charles Dew's Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states' secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the book offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were at the heart of our great national crisis. The fifteen years since the original publication of Apostles of Disunion have seen an intensification of debates surrounding the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments. In a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other upper South states toward secession and war.

About the Author
Charles B. Dew is Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College and the author of The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History, and the Slave Trade (Virginia) and Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge, selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Reviews
"Dew has produced an eye-opening study. . . . So much for states' rights as the engine of secession." -James M. McPherson, New York Review of Books

"This is an important study, meticulously researched and convincingly argued." -James Oliver Horton, author of The Landmarks of African American History

"This incisive history should dispel the pernicious notion that the Confederacy fought the Civil War to advance the constitutional principle of states' rights and only coincidentally to preserve slavery." -Allen d. Boyer, New York Times Book Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780813939445
Author Charles B. Dew
Format Paperback
Page Count 168
Imprint University of Virginia Press
Publisher University of Virginia Press
Weight(grams) 243g