But There Was No Peace: The Aftermath of the Civil War

President Abraham Lincoln called for "a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Three years later, after the turmoil and violence of the early Reconstruction years in the South, General Ulysses S. Grant accepted the Republican presidential nomination with the words: "Let us have peace." The apparent irony of the Civil War's commander in chief and the nation's foremost military leader calling for peace illustrates the paradox at the core of what we call the humanities. The pain of warfare and the possibility of peace form the theme of this lecture. The road to a just and lasting peace often leads through violent and relentless war. This lecture explores this paradox with a case study of the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/ Stanford Humanities Center: http://shc.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Channel on YouTube:    / stanford