Guests: Edward Ayers

Most histories of the civil war focus on the decisive battles, the military leaders, the battlefield strategy, and the political forces that shaped the era. In historian EDWARD AYERS’ new book, The Thin Light of Freedom, he depicts the struggles of ordinary Americans during wartime – the soldiers, the civilians, and the enslaved. He focuses his book on the final years of the war and early reconstruction, both north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Ayers joins Marty in the studio to talk about his book and how average Americans coped and experienced the war. [from the Radio Times archives]