This selection from Great Courses is an excellent overview of the American Civil War including events leading up to it and the immediate aftermath. It's as comprehensive as it can be for a course of 48 lectures of approximately 30 minutes each. Professor Gallagher is extremely knowledgeable and renowned in this subject matter and has received numerous awards from academia, as well as having authored numerous books, articles and scholastic papers.

I think any American would be well served by listening to The American Civil War Great Courses lectures by Professor Gallagher. As well as anyone interested in the topic. I learned so much from this Audible audiobook. While previously I had a very basic and general knowledge about the Civil War, this course filled in so much information and so many details for me; from biographical information about the main participants on both sides, a timeline of battles and the strategy behind them and the politics throughout. Hearing the number of casualities listed from each of the major battles, one by one, is staggering and mind boggling. All of it defies logic. We have many misconceptions surrounding the Civil War and this course dispels those for us. The North was not all abolitionist by any means and many of them were only in the fight to get the Union back together. Lincoln was at times not nearly abolitionist enough himself and often frustrated abolitionists. He also supported transporting freed slaves to Liberia, "to their own native land". I was appalled to learn that an "experimental" boat load of freed slaves was sent to a private Caribbean island, sponsored by a wealthy man full of promises of fulfilling all their needs and providing them with jobs, etc. None of that turned out to be the case and these some 800 former slaves were left on the island under despicable conditions. By the time they were returned to the U.S. after a year, several hundred of them had died. Simply deplorable.

Well, there is so much to be learned from Professor Gallagher in this course. I recommend you listen to it and learn some of this history. I feel it is all the more important at this turning point in United States' history, a critical, crucial moment in the American experiment. At times it feels like we have not come nearly as far as we should have in the years since the Civil War took place, nor have we learned the lessons that one might have expected us to after so much bloodshed. That people now constantly use rhetoric calling for another Civil War in America is beyond belief to me. Why can't we use and expand our intellect instead of warmongering? I see our only hope in education and knowledge. Great Courses like this one from Professor Gallagher can help immensely towards that end. ( )

Listening to this set of lectures is a good way to spend a commute. Gary Gallagher is a good presenter, and gives a balanced and concise look at the Civil War, military and social dimensions both. I recommend these lectures. ( )