American Civil Wars
A Continental History, 1850-1873
5 July 2024
Territory Rights — Worldwide.
Description
A Pulitzer Prize winner's masterful history of the American Civil War and its reverberations across the continent
In a beautifully crafted narrative of soaring ideals and sordid politics, of civil war and foreign invasion, Alan Taylor presents a pivotal twenty-year period in which the United States, Mexico and Canada all transformed themselves into nations. The American Civil War stands at the centre of the story, its military dimension and the drama of emancipation the focus. The American West and its Native peoples feature prominently, with fascinating detail on California and the southwest borderlands. The instability in the United States shakes the continent: it invites a French invasion of Mexico that fuels long-standing hostilities between Conservative and Liberal forces; in Canada it raises the urgency of a continental confederation to manage the differences of Francophones and Anglophones. The vivid character portraits throughout are indelible: from Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and the great Liberal leader Benito Juárez to key Black abolitionists such as Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd.
Reviews
"Taylor...offers compelling new insights....[His] transnational approach reveals the often unnoticed connections between America's war over slavery's future and the concurrent battles for individual rights in Mexico and Canada. " — Amanda Brickell, The Wall Street Journal
"Taylor is a formidable historian and masterly writer. He briskly disposes of some persistent myths about the Civil War,…[and] as for anyone who believes that the current turbulence on the U.S.-Mexican border is an anomaly, they will be edified by Taylor’s account of how Texans attacked Mexico for offering freedom to runaway slaves." — Thomas Ricks, The New York Times
"A mountain of historical studies testifies to enduring interest in the American Civil War… Those doubting that there is anything fresh to say about the bloodiest event in the republic’s history should read Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor’s brilliant, panoramic account of the conflict." — Richard Carwardine, Literary Review
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