From the first postwar riots to the return of Confederate exiles to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson to the highly contested and consequential election of 1876, and up to and through the present, Civil War by Other Means offers a new narrative history of modern American democracy that proves that our current moment—in which America is wrestling with competing visions of democracy, race, and freedom—is not unique, nor is the breaking point that has, or is still yet to come. Political dysfunction is a repeating feature of American democracy—perhaps as American as America can get. Emerging from Dr. Suri’s account of how the hope of Reconstruction and a unified nation quickly disintegrated, is a vivid—and at times unsettling—portrait of a country striving to rebuild itself, but unable to compromise on or adhere to the most basic democratic tenets.