Charles Pierce Roland ranks as one of the most distinguished and respected historians of the Civil War and the American South. A former president of the Southern Historical Association, Roland is the author of nine books, including An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War, the definitive biography of Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston, and a history of the South since World War II. History Teaches Us to Hope collects Roland's most important work -- some previously unpublished -- on secession and the Civil War, Civil War leadership, and the South in fact and myth, and also includes personal reflections by Roland about his own life and career.