What do you think?
Rate this book
Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War
Revised Edition
With a New Preface and Afterword
In a revised edition, brought completely up to date with a new preface and afterword and an expanded bibliography, Bruce Levine's succinct and persuasive treatment of the basic issues that precipitated the Civil War is as compelling as ever. Levine explores the far-reaching, divisive changes in American life that came with the incomplete Revolution of 1776 and the development of two distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor--changes out of which the Civil War developed.
With a New Preface and Afterword
In a revised edition, brought completely up to date with a new preface and afterword and an expanded bibliography, Bruce Levine's succinct and persuasive treatment of the basic issues that precipitated the Civil War is as compelling as ever. Levine explores the far-reaching, divisive changes in American life that came with the incomplete Revolution of 1776 and the development of two distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor--changes out of which the Civil War developed.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
7 people are currently reading
595 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
August 6, 2021
This is a good narrative overview of the conflict between the north and the south in the Antebellum era. Levine basically sees the central conflict between sections as being over the slavery issue and I think that’s probably right. It’s not necessarily a great read but there is some good enough anecdotes in there to make it worthwhile. It’s also been around a long time is still trusted by a lot of professors and scholars.
January 26, 2018
The second half of the book was more interesting. The earlier sections provided only a general background on Southern and Northern society almost as a collection of quotations and statistics. There did not appear to be much narrative driving the arguments.
This did not add much to my understanding of the "roots" of the Civil War, despite the promise of the title.
This did not add much to my understanding of the "roots" of the Civil War, despite the promise of the title.
July 23, 2008
2008-Spring,TAH,American history,American Civil War,antebellum,Reform,
December 26, 2012
It was very complex, but it really helps nail down the ideas that kept the conflict between the north and south alive. I read this for my civil war class, but found it absolutely fascinating.
August 23, 2013
A little bit on the dense side, but nonetheless an interesting journey into the life and politics of the antebellum United States.
April 28, 2019
This book is to foundational to my attempt to understand our country for me to write a short review. Like the other Levine history I have read, it deserves a 5000 word essay.
In case you didn't know, Jefferson, who was a slave-owner and a culture player who was always outspending his insatiable appetite for culture and so always needed his slave assets ... he hoped we would eventually end the peculiar institution. He lived forever and as an old man he saw that his earlier hope that the youngsters would see the discrepancy between "Give me Liberty or Give Me Death" and chattel slavery--your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren forever shall be our slaves was not going to come to pass. The north had eventually outlawed slavery which it never had as much as the south; but the south, well Jefferson remarked:
"A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper ... I regret that I am now going to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it."
What are you going do with that? Did you know that Jefferson felt so troubled about our nation in 1820?
Levine's book title is from Lincoln's speech about how our nation can't live long one way or the other, but must choose ... do we want the future of our country to be built upon Slavery or Freedom. He explores both sides and both cultures. The industrial north struggled with treatment of labor and actually leading up to the civil war, the south used this as justification for slavery.
Please read this book and others like it. I promise, even though the institution of slavery was permanently destroyed by the civil war, you will see plenty of parallels to ideas today. One of the chapters on the south is called Anointed Lords of Creation ... heard anyone basically argue this? I know you have.
In case you didn't know, Jefferson, who was a slave-owner and a culture player who was always outspending his insatiable appetite for culture and so always needed his slave assets ... he hoped we would eventually end the peculiar institution. He lived forever and as an old man he saw that his earlier hope that the youngsters would see the discrepancy between "Give me Liberty or Give Me Death" and chattel slavery--your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren forever shall be our slaves was not going to come to pass. The north had eventually outlawed slavery which it never had as much as the south; but the south, well Jefferson remarked:
"A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper ... I regret that I am now going to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it."
What are you going do with that? Did you know that Jefferson felt so troubled about our nation in 1820?
Levine's book title is from Lincoln's speech about how our nation can't live long one way or the other, but must choose ... do we want the future of our country to be built upon Slavery or Freedom. He explores both sides and both cultures. The industrial north struggled with treatment of labor and actually leading up to the civil war, the south used this as justification for slavery.
Please read this book and others like it. I promise, even though the institution of slavery was permanently destroyed by the civil war, you will see plenty of parallels to ideas today. One of the chapters on the south is called Anointed Lords of Creation ... heard anyone basically argue this? I know you have.
April 4, 2020
I wavered between four and five stars. This is a great book - I learned a lot. In fact, it was a school text for one of my kids in HS or early college, before I inherited it out of curiosity. Some of it is pretty dense going - not very long but not an easy read either. At some point the parties, the politicians, the states and the many Congressional acts get a bit hard to keep straight. But that is by no means the entirety of the book. It details, and I mean details, the evidence that preserving slavery was the cause of secession, which then led directly to the Civil War. There is no escaping that fact with states' rights talk, or economics, or anything else. It was slavery. Slavery. And the tensions dated from the founding documents and compromises and then stretch forward to the present day. An enormous amount of energy and political will was expended on the "peculiar institution" in the US. Here's what else I learned: Christianity was used to justify slavery, as much as or more than it was used to justify abolition. The vulnerability of the church to sin didn't start in 2016, or 1980 (with the Moral Majority), and I suppose it didn't start in the 1830's. But if reading about how religion was abused to support enslaving people doesn't make you question and inherent (versus human endowed) value of faith, what will? I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand Civil War history, beyond the watered down and face-saving (for the South) version we were taught in school.
March 9, 2023
This book describes the division between the North and the South in the early to mid-nineteenth century. It is presents a great deal of worthwhile information in a lively style, and for that it gets 4 stars. However, I found the organization of the chapters to be insufficient in all but the earliest chapters. I read it easily enough but found it hard to sort out a structure in all the facts presented. The book does not have footnotes, just a general bibliography at the end. The author refers to some individuals and some events assuming that the reader knows their relevance to the topic, but either I'd never heard of the people or events, or did not understand the connection. Despite this, the book is very clear in presenting slavery as being the root cause of the Civil War.
October 14, 2020
I like Levine and this was an excellent background of early American history in terms of it's lead up to the civil war. Establishing the different traditions, labor systems and public opinions and politics of the North and the South is pivotal to understanding the war and why the South has so adamantly tried to reinvent it. From the beginning, it was always about the political maneuvering and competition between free states and slave states, and their perceptions of each other that drove the South to secede in the name of protecting it's most bedrock institution. Excellent primary sources in here, with some of the most concise statements from Lincoln I've yet read.
February 13, 2018
This book provides an excellent analysis of the underlying causes of the Civil War. It goes beyond the slavery/free split to explain how this divide transformed from a differing ideology to a cause of war. The authors discuss the spreading of the slavery debate from economic to political, including southern interpretations of northern politicians promoting manufacturing through protective tariffs and the perception that the north could dictate national politics without any southern support. Overall, a very well-written book that is both interesting to read and very informative.
August 14, 2020
Concise and well built argument without the overly academic density. Digestable and easy read to understanding the basis of difference in character, class, and religion between the North and the South in the antebellum period as it relates to the relationships with the peculiar institution - Slavery. The Afterword in this edition is damning and well worth the addition in pulling the white supremacy doctrine from the mouths of those at the pinnacle as well as those undergirding it wearing the butternut and gray.
December 23, 2021
A crisp social, political, and economic overview of the forces that contributed to the onset of civil war in the United States. Levine has a knack for crafting paragraphs that cover a lot of historical territory and also capture illuminating quotes and statistics. He is most effective as a writer and historian in explaining how the thicket of political party formations and dissolution that occurred from the late 1840's through 1860s, finally arrived at the death of the Whigs, the rise of the Republicans, and the consolidation of Democratic support for slavery in the South.
September 28, 2018
One of the very best (and most concise) books on civil war causation, Half Slave, Half Free builds on the underlying themes in Apostles of Disunion and makes the most persuasive case for the modern narrative of causation.
August 2, 2020
A.well-written piece about the various factors that led to the war between the states. As someone who had no idea about the constant compromises that occurred in Congress to prevent secession, I found this piece fun and fascinating to read.
April 16, 2025
This was a good overview of the underlying cause of the Civil War. While there was a great amount of useful information, I would have liked more of an emphasis on some of the other major events and people like John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and the Lincoln Douglas debates.
August 17, 2018
More of a survey than a deep-dive into a broad and complex era, it is nonetheless a very useful work.
August 22, 2018
This book is very content heavy, but if you are up to the task, it is a thorough and multifaceted account of the events, conditions, and attitudes that contributed to the Civil war.
September 17, 2019
Fantastic analysis of the social, political and cultural history of antebellum America and what led up to the Civil War!!
September 25, 2019
Extremely readable and full of good information. Recommend for anyone interested in Antebellum America and the cause of the Civil War.
January 15, 2020
Wow - lots of information but excellent background.
Read
April 28, 2024kinda boring tbh, but i got that essay done!!
August 7, 2024
i don't think i have a brain anymore
December 31, 2024
A great analysis of the original sin of the founding of the so-called USA. This complements works on the settler-colonial nature of the US.
Read
June 6, 2025Read for school
October 9, 2015
Although this book didn't revolutionize my understanding of the roots of the Civil War, it still does a pretty good job explaining the cultural and political factors that provoked the conflict.Levine covers a lot of social and cultural history in the first half of the 20th century. I found this section frustrating because it was so distanced from politics and I knew a lot of it already. If I was a newcomer to antebellum history, I would have found this section more useful and interesting, so it isn't really Levine's fault. His basic argument is that over the course of the 19th century, the North and the South drifted apart socially and culturally to the point where their views of slavery, especially its expansion, became incompatible. This process split partisan politics into sectional politics, splitting the major parties and reforming ones that were much more sectionally rooted and more focused on extending or containing slavery. Levine puts culture and society first and argues that shifts in popular opinion drag politics along. I'm not sure if I really buy this argument or if it's just a reflection of the cultural turn's tendency to assume that politicians are following popular movements. However, Levine makes a good point that these societies were drifting apart in ways that made them see slavery very differently and eventually in incompatible ways.
May 5, 2009
Levine provides us with a very concise version of the sectional struggle between the slave states and the free states leading up to the Civil War. At no point does his prose drift into a monotonous droning of historical diction. He hits his points swiftly, and shining light with intriguing anecdotes and primary sources, from not only the leading lights of politics and literature, but also from the mechanics and the immigrants and the enslaved.
Levine reserves his vitriolic best for a number of characters in this pageant of hypocrisy and political compromise. Dressed in academic propriety, he exposes Jefferson Davis, Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan for the eternal boobs that they are. The indictments always come in their own words -- never projected from our stage. Levine gives a broad contextualization of society -- political, social, religious, economic and racial -- which marked by both the North and the South.
It is exceptionally readable, in my estimation (though I'm a dork for this sort of reading), and evaporates any lingering notions of whether slavery was at the heart of the Civil War, which unfortunately still plagues the American citizenry.
Levine reserves his vitriolic best for a number of characters in this pageant of hypocrisy and political compromise. Dressed in academic propriety, he exposes Jefferson Davis, Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan for the eternal boobs that they are. The indictments always come in their own words -- never projected from our stage. Levine gives a broad contextualization of society -- political, social, religious, economic and racial -- which marked by both the North and the South.
It is exceptionally readable, in my estimation (though I'm a dork for this sort of reading), and evaporates any lingering notions of whether slavery was at the heart of the Civil War, which unfortunately still plagues the American citizenry.
March 10, 2013
There will be some (Many) who would continue to be enraged by the thrust of Levine's view that the roots of America's civil war lay in slavery, but it is very difficult for any reasoned mind to conclude otherwise when much of his primary source evidence is drawn from the pre-revisionist pens of senior southern politicians, planters and soldiers.
Those who argue that the causes of the war were economic, cultural or social miss the somewhat inconvenient fact that the very foundation of these differences was slavery. Those who champion the cause of 'States Rights' conveniently ignore the truth that the states right for which the south was prepared to fight, was the right to perpetuate and expand Negro slavery.
Discuss?
Those who argue that the causes of the war were economic, cultural or social miss the somewhat inconvenient fact that the very foundation of these differences was slavery. Those who champion the cause of 'States Rights' conveniently ignore the truth that the states right for which the south was prepared to fight, was the right to perpetuate and expand Negro slavery.
Discuss?
October 5, 2013
Levin's book really only picks up steam in Chapter 10 and in the afterward, in which Davis, Stephens and others tacitly or otherwise admit that slavery was more or less the root cause of the war. The first half of the book doesn't break much new ground, and even people who purport the faulty state's rights argument don't deny the political turmoil caused by the institution in the 80 years leading up to 1861. For a more targeted handling of the subject, see Eric Foner's "Free Soil Free Labor Free Men."
July 23, 2016
Bruce Levine views the American Revolution of 1776 as an incomplete revolution because it permitted the continued development of two entirely different social and economic systems to coexist in the United States--one based on free labor and one based on slavery. As a result, he argues that the issue of slavery made differences, both interstate and intrastate, so pronounced and emotionally charged that the outbreak of the Civil War was inevitable. A well-written, well-documented work with an extensive bibliography.
April 6, 2008
Broad overview of the social, cultural, political, and economic forces that shape the outbreak of the civil war. I love the focus on the philosophy and impact of free soilers and the way in which author Levine characterizes the civil war. Was the civil war about slavery?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews