Product Description: In the decades before the Civil War, Americans debating the fate of slavery often invoked the specter of disunion to frighten or discredit their opponents. According to Elizabeth Varon, "disunion" was a startling and provocative keyword in Americans' political vocabulary: it connoted the failure of the founders' singular effort to establish a lasting representative government...read more

Product Description: In 1850 St. Louis was the commercial capital of the West. By 1860, however, Chicago had supplanted St. Louis and became the great metropolis of the region. This book explains the rapid ascent and the abrupt collapse of the Missouri city...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Even as Americans keep moving "all over the map" in the late twentieth century, they cherish memories of the places they come from. But where do these places--these regions--come from? What makes them so real? In this groundbreaking book a distinguished group of historians explores the concept of region in America, traces changes the idea has undergone in our national experience, and examines its meaning for Americans today...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)