Harrold (history, South Carolina State U.) presents a collection of 62 documents pertaining to the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, including presidential addresses, official reports, songs and poems, and excerpts from personal journals, diaries, and letters offering eyewitness accounts of major events. The materials are organized into sections covering causes of the war, disunion to war, battles, soldiers' experiences, homefronts, political perspectives, the trans-Mississippi West, and Reconstruction. Each document is introduced with contextualized headnotes explaining the significance of the piece, and each section concludes with questions for discussion. Designed as a resource for undergraduate students in American history courses, the text encourages students to actively engage in historical interpretation. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)