Ecstatic Nation

"From the death of John Quincy Adams through the Civil War to the tragedy of Reconstruction, Wineapple tells the American story brilliantly." —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
A Kirkus Best Book of 2013
A Bookpage Best Book of 2013

Dazzling in scope, Ecstatic Nation illuminates one of the most dramatic and momentous chapters in America's past, when the country dreamed big, craved new lands and new freedom, and was bitterly divided over its great moral wrong: slavery. With a canvas of extraordinary characters, such as P. T. Barnum, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, and L. C. Q. Lamar, Ecstatic Nation brilliantly balances cultural and political history: It's a riveting account of the sectional conflict that preceded the Civil War, and it astutely chronicles the complex aftermath of that war and Reconstruction, including the promise that women would share in a new definition of American citizenship. It takes us from photographic surveys of the Sierra Nevadas to the discovery of gold in the South Dakota hills, and it signals the painful, thrilling birth of modern America.


An epic tale by award-winning author Brenda Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation lyrically and with true originality captures the optimism, the failures, and the tragic exuberance of a renewed Republic.

"[A] fresh and riveting account of America at war with itself . . . Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation does a laudable job of bringing to life not just the Civil War but the society in which it occurred—and has evolved into the present." —Los Angeles Times
"A masterly, deeply moving record of a crucial period in American history." —The New York Times Book Review