| Edition |
First Edition. |
| Description |
viii, 486 pages : black & white illustrations, photographs, facsimilies, portraits ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-468) and index. |
| Contents |
Part I: A vast, unwieldy machine. Join, or die ; Only united in name ; constitutional crisis -- Part II: Irreconcilable differences. Reign of alarm ; Lost cause of the north ; This unholy union ; Endangered by greatness -- Part III: Earthquake comes. Wide awake ; Going, going, gone ; Great red river -- Part IV: Return of the repressed. War was fought in vain ; Divided we stand ; Cold civil war -- Conclusion: What is all this worth? |
| Summary |
The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: the United States has never lived up to its name -- and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn't limited to the South or the nineteenth century. With a scholar's command and a journalist's curiosity, Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. Each New England town after Plymouth was a secession from another; the thirteen colonies viewed their Union as a means to the end of securing independence, not an end in itself. From the "cold civil war" that pits partisans against one another to the modern secession movements in California and Texas, the divisions that threaten to tear America apart today have centuries-old roots in the earliest days of our Republic. Richly researched and persuasively argued, Break It Up will help readers make fresh sense of our fractured age |
| Subject(S) |
Secession -- United States.
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Polarization (Social sciences) -- United States.
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States' rights (American politics)
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United States -- Politics and government -- 21st century.
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United States -- Politics and government -- Philosophy.
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| ISBN |
9780316510608 (paperback) |
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0316510602 (paperback) |
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