Robert W. Johannsen, professor emeritus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is one of the leading Jacksonian- and Civil War-era historians of his generation. Works such as his "Stephen A. Douglas" and "To the Halls of the Montezumas" have cemented his place in period scholarship. He also has mentored literally dozens of professional historians. In his honor, eleven of his students have gathered to contribute new essays on the period's history. On display here are cutting-edge examinations of thought and culture in the late Jacksonian era, new considerations of Manifest Destiny, and fascinating interpretations of the lives of the two political giants of the period, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Democratic Party politics and Civil War-era religion also come into play.