About the lecture

In this module, we provide a broad introduction to the issues we will covering in this course, focusing in particular on how the division of the United States between free states and slave states led to Civil War in the 1860s.

About the lecturer

Kevin Waite is an assistant professor in American history at Durham University, where he teaches and writes on slavery, imperialism, and the American West. His book-in-progress explores how slaveholders extended their political dominion across the American West in the mid-19th century, and in the process, hastened the coming of the Civil War. His scholarly articles and book chapters have covered a wide range of subjects: manliness in Napoleonic-era English public schools; the political struggle over America’s first transcontinental railroad; the evolving myth of George Armstrong Custer in Hollywood film; and the Civil War in Indian Territory.