In the early decades of the nineteenth century, remarkable individuals and communities charted new paths for America in the realms of art, nature, belief, and technology. Edward L. Ayers has come to understand these changemakers and their impact through decades of award-winning scholarship on the Civil War. In American Visions he brings them and their times to life.

This rich history examines the visions that moved Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, the Native American activist William Apess and their contemporaries to challenge the entrenched practices and beliefs of their era, 1800-1860. They saw and experienced the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, and wars with Canada and Mexico; and these impassioned, driven individuals took action. Lydia Maria Child condemned the racism of her fellow northerners at great personal cost. Melville and Thoreau crafted a new American literature. Joseph Smith and Samuel Morse created new worlds and ways of communicating. Hear from the celebrated historian Edward L. Ayers about this period when bold visionaries and critics built vigorous traditions of dissent and innovation into the foundation of the nation. Their strivings and successes made us and our country what it is today.

Edward L. Ayers is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, has won the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes for his innovative histories of Civil War America. He is president emeritus of the University of Richmond, where he is executive director of New American History.