The Civil War had begun. Immediately following the attack, four more states -- Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee ... Men and women -- black and white and in the North and South ...

Indeed, the South merely needed to convince the North to quit the war, a decision largely made by the civilian population and one the Confederates came close to pulling off more than once, he said.

The Civil War remains one of the most important chapters in American history. But the conflict itself was more complex than North vs. South.

“These classic North-South divisions don’t explain, however, why Christians in the North were bitterly divided among themselves too. …. [the book] shows how these ‘warring religious nationalists’ ...