Introduction. Studies of American historians on the Civil War and Reconstruction continue to be central issues in the 21st century. There is an increased public demand for these studies. The author of the analytical review of American publications tries to answer the question of what this interest is related to.
Methods. The author of the review uses the methodological tools such as the scientific principle of objectivity, the special historicalcomparative method and the systematic approach to answer this question.
Analysis. The author points out the main areas of studying new aspects marked by American historians of the mid-19th century. These areas include the issues and interpretations on military, political, everyday, anthropological, social and cultural, and economic history. Besides, new approaches in peer-reviewed monographs for the comprehensive coverage of the study material of this issue are highlighted.
Results. The interest of academicians and the American public to studying the historical period of the Civil War and Reconstruction, on the one hand, tells about carrying the deep psycho-civilizational trauma by all subsequent generations of both white and black Americans at this time, and on the other hand, this war debunks the myth of God’s chosen destiny of the American nation to build a “City on a Hill”. Constant refinements, additions, revisions, and reinterpretations of the events and consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction in contemporary American historiography only confirm this conclusion. The publications selected by the reviewer on this issue for 2019 not only introduce new American historical works to Russian Americanists, but also provide an opportunity to expand their own research on this issue.
The Handicap Principle: how an erroneous hypothesis became a scientific principle