"When Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, he had broader aims than simply rallying a war-weary nation. Lincoln realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance,that all of Europe and Latin America was watching to see whether the United States, a beleaguered model of democracy, would indeed
perish from the earth.""In
The Cause of All Nations , distinguished historian Don H. Doyle explains that the Civil War was viewed abroad as part of a much larger struggle for democracy that spanned the Atlantic Ocean, and had begun with the American and French Revolutions. While battles raged at Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg, a parallel contest took place abroad, both in the marbled courts of power and in the public square. Foreign observers held widely divergent views on the war,from radicals such as Karl Marx and Giuseppe Garibaldi who called on the North to fight for liberty and equality, to aristocratic monarchists, who hoped that the collapse of the Union would strike a death blow against democratic movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Nowhere were these monarchist dreams more ominous than in Mexico, where Napoleon III sought to implement his Grand Design for a Latin Catholic empire that would thwart the spread of Anglo-Saxon democracy and use the Confederacy as a buffer state.
Hoping to capitalize on public sympathies abroad, both the Union and the Confederacy sent diplomats and special agents overseas: the South to seek recognition and support, and the North to keep European powers from interfering. Confederate agents appealed to those conservative elements who wanted the South to serve as a bulwark against radical egalitarianism. Lincoln and his Union agents overseas learned to appeal to many foreigners by embracing emancipation and casting the Union as the embattled defender of universal republican ideals, the
last best hope of earth.""A bold account of the international dimensions of America's defining conflict,
The Cause of All Nations
frames the Civil War as a pivotal moment in a global struggle that would decide the survival of democracy."
By:
Don Doyle
Imprint: Basic Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 163mm,
Spine: 36mm
Weight: 656g
ISBN: 9780465029679
ISBN 10: 0465029671
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 30 December 2014
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Time Line of Key Events, 1860--1870 Introduction: American Crisis, Global Struggle PART I Only a Civil War Chapter 1: Garibaldi's Question Chapter 2: We Are a Nation Chapter 3: We Will Wrap the World in Flames PART II The American Question Chapter 4: The Republican Experiment Chapter 5: The Empires Return Chapter 6: Foreign Translations Chapter 7: Foreign Legions PART III Liberty's War Chapter 8: The Latin Strategy Chapter 9: Garibaldi's Answer Chapter 10: Union and Liberty Chapter 11: The Unspeakable Dilemma Chapter 12: Shall Not Perish Coda: Republican Risorgimento Acknowledgments Abbreviations Notes Index
Don H. Doyle is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. The author of several books, including Faulkner's County and Nations Divided, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina.
Reviews for The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War
Bruce Levine, author of The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that Transformed the South At last! In a single judicious, skillfully constructed, and very well written volume, Don Doyle has given us a concise but panoramic view of the United States Civil War's impact on world history. We have needed such a book for a long time. It deserves a wide audience among scholars, teachers, students, and general readers alike. James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era Offering new perspectives on the international dimensions of the American Civil War, Don Doyle portrays it as a world-changing conflict between liberalism and reaction. This eye-opening book leaves no doubt that Abraham Lincoln was right when he said that 'the whole family of man' had a stake in the war's outcome. Richard Carwardine, President of Corpus Christi College and author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power The Cause of All Nations makes a powerful and original contribution to our understanding of the American Civil War. Rich in color, drama and personalities, The Cause of All Nations is an admirable work of scholarship that, as its title indicates, will be of as much interest to European historians as to specialists in American history. It demonstrates that the American conflict was not a mere sideshow for Europeans: for contemporaries on this side of the Atlantic it had direct and profound implications for their countries' internal struggles and future development.
