The Republic in Crisis, 1848-1861 analyzes the political climate in the years leading up to the Civil War, offering for students and general readers a clear, chronological account of the sectional conflict and the beginning of the Civil War. Emerging from the tumultuous political events of the 1840s and 1850s, the Civil War was caused by the maturing of the North and South's separate, distinctive forms of social organization and their resulting ideologies. John Ashworth emphasizes factors often overlooked in explanations of the war, including the resistance of slaves in the South and the growth of wage labor in the North. Ashworth acquaints readers with modern writings on the period, providing a new interpretation of the American Civil War's causes.