"The war alone did not make America modern, but the war marks the birth of modern America." Preface, pg ix

"They all believed that ideas are not 'out there' waiting to be discovered, but are tools - like forks and knives and microchips - that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves." Preface, pg xi

"But Delany concluded that the antislavery activists were more offended by the notion of Southerners presuming to send their agents into Northern cities to retrieve their 'property' than they were by discrimination against any black man already in their midst. And he was not wrong." Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, pg 9

"If the American Union cannot be maintained, except by immolating human freedom on the altar of tyranny, then let the American Union be consumed by a living thunderbolt, and no tear be shed over its ashes." Part 1, Chapter 1, Section...