Some refer to the Civil War (1861-1865) as the 2nd American Revolution, and indeed, in many ways, it is the beginning of the national political parties and structures we know today.
What I appreciate most about this podcast is how it presents the Civil War as INSEPARABLE from Reconstruction (1863/65-1877/1890/etc.). The war cannot be accurately understood by looking only at the war years, or only the politics around slavery, or only anything. The North won the war and was able to keep most of the fighting to the South or territories near the border, and yet the North was no less radically changed by the outcome, in ways that most Americans would not honestly face until the political end of Jim Crow in 1965.
David Blight has written many books about The Civil War, Reconstruction, and Southern American history. The podcast is essentially just recordings of the lectures in his HST 119 class at Yale. If midgrade audio quality and one person’s voice delivering the program is not to your taste, you may duck out early, but it’s definitely still worth a skim. I don’t think you’ll find a more curious, holistic, and insightful look at American history (any era) anywhere.
It also introduced me to 2 incredible books by historian Charles B. Dew (links in sources).
Professor David Blight
Reccommended Episodes:
Lecture 8- Dred Scott, Bleeding Kansas, and the Impending Crisis of the Union, 1855-58
Lecture 17- Homefronts and Battlefronts: "Hard War" and the Social Impact of the Civil War
Lecture 20- Wartime Reconstruction: Imagining the Aftermath and a Second American Republic
Lecture 21- Andrew Johnson and the Radicals: A Contest over the Meaning of Reconstruction
Lecture 25- The "End" of Reconstruction: Disputed Election of 1876, and the "Compromise of 1877"
Sources:
The Making of a Racist- Charles B. Dew
Apostles of Disunion- Charles B. Dew