"The Ordeal of the Union" by Allan Nevins, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, Complete set of all eight volumes, First Edition, 1971 printing.

Nevins started to publish single volumes in 1947 and continued until his death in 1971. Known under one single title "The Ordeal of the Union," the original volumes were initially issued under three separate titles: "The Ordeal of the Union" [2 first volumes, 1947]; "The Emergence of Lincoln" [volumes III and IV, 1950]; and "The War for the Union" [final four volumes]. For the last two volumes, published in 1971, Nevins won the U.S. National Book Award in History.

The individual books are:

Volume 1: "Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852" [1947 print 1971]
Volume 2: "A House Dividing, 1852-1857" [1947, print 1971]
Volume 3: "Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-1859" [1950, print 1971]
Volume 4: "Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861" [1950, print 1971]
Volume 5: "The Improvised War 1861-1862" (1959), 1st ed. 7th print, G-4.71[V]
Volume 6: "War becomes Revolution 1862-1863" (1960), 1st ed. 6th print, F-4.71[V]
Volume 7: "The Organized War 1863-1864" (1971), 1st Ed. 1st print, A-7.71(H)
Volume 8: "The Organized War to Victory 1864-1865" (1971), 1st Ed. 1st print, A-9.71 (H)

Hard boards, original red cloth, gold lettering on spine [a little wear and soiling], 6.1/2" x 9.1/2"; 13.1/2" shelf space; all eight volumes have photo frontispiece as well as numerous campaign maps, and the occasional illustration and photo, each volume has an Index; 593 + 590 + 472 + 524 + 436 + 557 + 532 + 448 pages. Vol.1 has slightly stained outer edge of the pages; vol.6 has "Frederik B. Wiggins" written on front endpaper; vol.7 has a large ink stain on the upper edge of the pages, the ink slightly blooded into upper margin [see photos]; all volumes are clean inside, very good condition.

"Most of the dozens of books I have read about the American Civil War, an event that looms in my mind as the most significant in American history, have been military histories. Certainly, there is much military history in Allan Nevins' (1890-1971) four volume War for the Union, but War for the Union is primarily a political, social, economic and administrative history of those most fateful four years, 1861-1865.

And is it ever thorough! Though Nevins' treatment of the Confederate sources is extensive, it pales before his examination of the Union sources, for it appears that Nevins read everything written by the players on the Union side of the conflict, even the most obscure, and much of the production of contemporary journalists and diarists in order to keep the reader abreast of what was going on in the minds of those players at every critical juncture in his essentially chronological account.......

Nevins emphasizes that the incredible new tasks of organizing, funding and focusing the efforts required for Total War, for transitioning from a federal military totaling less than 20,000 in 1861 to well over 1,000,000 two years later, for supplying them, transporting them, funding them, caused a radical change in the nature of the American economy, society and government, one without which, in my view, the American involvement in Europe in 1914-1918 would have been negligible, if it had taken place at all, with all the concomitant changes in European history that would have entailed.........

The Civil War was the extreme circumstance that changed American society in every aspect, from stem to stern, and the War for the Union recalls for us both the admirable and the disgraceful, the self-sacrificing and the self-obsessed, the incredibly brave and the abysmally cowardly, the noble and the truly horrific acts that together resulted in a total transformation of American society, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives." [excerpts from a private review]

Allan Nevins (1890-1971) was an American historian and journalist, renowned for his extensive work on the history of the Civil War and his biographies of such figures as President Grover Cleveland, Hamilton Fish, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller.

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