Northerners at War: Reflections on the Civil War Home Front by J. Matthew Gallman

Abstract

J. Matthew Gallman's latest book, Northerners at War: Reflections on the Civil War Home Front , is a tour de force of the eminent historian's intellectual development and evolution over the past two decades. Since the appearance of his first book, Mastering Wartime: A Social History of Philadelphia During the Civil War (1990), Gallman has emerged as a leading figure in nineteenth-century social history, particularly on Civil War homefront issues. Gallman's central thesis throughout his many books, journal articles, and essays on the Northern home front argues the war had only limited transformational effects; he rejects outright the idea that the Civil War represented a decisive turning point or drastic new direction in American social, economic, or political development. Throughout his career, Gallman has consistently argued that antebellum social, economic, and political patterns were successfully adapted to meet the war's exigencies, making bold deviations and sharp turning points unnecessary.