Another Mailbox Monday!!! Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. This is a feature where we all share with each other the exciting books that showed up at our doors this week. WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and ever-growing wishlists!!

Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War

by Robert B. Ekelund Jr.

What role did economics play in leading the United States into the Civil War in the 1860s, and how did the war affect the economies of the North and the South? Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation uses contemporary economic analyses such as supply and demand, modern market theory, and the economics of politics to interpret events of the Civil War.

I've been searching for this book at the library for months and finally broke down and bought it. I think that in looking at the Civil War you need to not just look at the battles that were fought, but the the impacts of everything on the situation. I'm hoping that this book will be very informative about how the war affected the people and nation as a whole.

Getting all my Civil War reading together I ordered the following book used from Barnes & Noble (which looked like no one else ever touched it).

1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and the War They Failed to See

by Bruce Chadwick

Highly recommended–a gripping narrative of the critical year of 1858 and the nation's slide toward disunion and war. Chadwick is especially adept at retelling the intense emotions of this critical time, particularly especially in recounting abolitionist opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jefferson Davis's passionate defense of this institution. For readers seeking to understand how individuals are agents of historical change will find Chadwick's account of the failed leadership of President James Buchanan, especially compelling.

Amazon.com Product Description