The book is divided into three sections covering the role of the press in the prewar years, throughout the conflict itself, and during the Reconstruction period. Part 1, "Setting the Agenda for Secession and War," considers the rise of the consumer society and the journalistic readership, the changing nature of editorial standards and practice, the issues of abolitionism, secession, and armed resistence as reflected in Northern and Southern newspapers, the reporting on John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid, and the influence of journalism on the 1860 election results. Part 2, "In Time of War," includes discussions of journalistic images and ideas of womanhood in the context of war, the political orientation of the Jewish press, the rise of illustrated periodicals, and issues of censorship and opposition journalism. The chapters in Part 3, "Reconstructing a Nation," detail the infiltration of the former Confederacy by hundreds of federally subsidized Republican newspapers, editorial reactions to the developing issue of voting rights for freed slaves, and the journalistic mythologization of Jesse James as a resister of Reconstruction laws and conquering Unionists. In tracing the confluence of journalism and politics from its source, this groundbreaking volume opens a wide variety of perspectives on a crucial period in American history while raising questions that remain pertainent to contemporary tensions between press power and government power. will be essential reading for historians, media studies specialists, political scientists, and readers interested in the Civil War period.