Check out our Most Anticipated Books for 2025

Book Summary and Reviews of Righteous Strife by Richard Carwardine

Righteous Strife by Richard Carwardine

Righteous Strife

How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union

by Richard Carwardine

  • Publishes:
  • Jan 21, 2025, 624 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln's contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism.

How did slavery figure in God's plan? Was it the providential role of government to abolish this sin and build a righteous nation? Or did such a mission amount to "religious tyranny" and "pulpit politics," in an effort to strip the southern states of their God-given rights? In 1861, in an already fracturing nation, the tensions surrounding this moral quandary cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, where antislavery religious nationalists butted heads with conservative religious nationalists over their visions for America's future.

At the center of this melee stood Abraham Lincoln, who would turn to his own faith for guidance, proclaiming more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since.These pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war.

In Righteous Strife, Richard Carwardine gives renewed attention to this crucible of contending religious nationalisms, out of which were forged emancipation, Lincoln's reelection, and his second inaugural address. No understanding of the American Civil War is complete without accounting for this complex dance between church and state—one that continues to define our nation.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This compelling book adds luster to Richard Carwardine's enviable reputation as an interpreter of Abraham Lincoln and the 19th-Century United States. A splendid reckoning of how religion interacted with politics, fostered different conceptions of nationalism, and shaped debates about emancipation, it highlights the daunting complexity of a profoundly consequential era." —Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis

"Richard Carwardine's Righteous Strife will stand as the authoritative volume on the fascinating and impactful debate between and among Christian denominations during the bloody American Civil War. A superb scholar of both Lincoln and American religion, Carwardine's chapters highlight the growth of a triumphant and nationalistic northern religious sensibility that emerged in 1864 and 1865, presided over and curated by President Abraham Lincoln, and famously proclaimed in his Second Inaugural Address." —Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth

"Righteous Strife offers a strikingly novel perspective on the Civil War era.  The author of the most astute account of Abraham Lincoln's religious sensibilities, Richard Carwardine brings the same subtlety to bear on the clash of religious nationalisms through which Americans came to terms with the problem of slavery. Based on deep research and rendered in lucid prose, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the greatest crisis in American history." —James Oakes, author of The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

This information about Righteous Strife was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Richard Carwardine

Richard Carwardine is the author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, winner of the Lincoln Prize, the largest award for nineteenth-century American history, and Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America. He is Emeritus Rhodes Professor of American History and Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more history, current affairs and religion...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Message
    The Message
    by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    It does not surprise me that Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message is one of the most important books I've ...
  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

X M T S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.