Historian David Goldfield discusses his vivid narrative history of the Civil War, America Aflame, which offers the first major new interpretation of the era in 20 years.

America Aflame posits that the Second Great Awakening infused evangelical religion into the public sphere, turning political questions into matters of good and evil—to be fought over to the death. The narrative begins in 1834, when a Boston mob destroyed a Catholic convent, symbolizing the toxicity of the period’s politics.