The Transnational Significance of the American Civil War

This volume of pioneering essays brings together an impressive array of well-established and emerging historians from Europe and the United States whose common endeavor is to situate America’s Civil War within the wider framework of global history. These essays view the American conflict through a fascinating array of topical prisms that will take readers beyond the familiar themes of U. S. Civil War history. They will also take readers beyond the national boundaries that typically confine our understanding of this momentous conflict. The history of America’s Civil War has typically been interpreted within a familiar national narrative focusing on the internal discord between North and South over the future of slavery in the United States. Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 List of Contributors 10 Chapter 1: Introduction: The Electric Chain of Transnational History 13 Notes 22 Part I: Liberalism, Citizenship, and International Law 25 Chapter 2: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Seas?: Civil War Statecraft and the Liberal Quest for Oceanic Order 26 Notes 39 Chapter 3: The American Civil War and the Transatlantic Triumph of Volitional Citizenship 43 Notes 55 Chapter 4: Lincoln as the Great Educator: Opinion and Educative Liberalism in the Civil War Era 59 Notes 71 Part II: Transnational Political Economy and Finance 77 Chapter 5: Southern Wealth, Global Profits: Cotton, Economic Culture, and the Coming of the Civil War 78 Notes 93 Chapter 6: International Finance in the Civil War Era 100 Notes 113 Part III: Transnational Discourses on Freedom and Radicalism 116 Chapter 7: Uprooted Emancipators: Transatlantic Abolitionism and the Politics of Belonging 117 Notes 130 Chapter 8: Africa and the American Civil War: The Geopolitics of Freedom and the Production of Commons 135 Notes 151 Part IV: Nation Building and Social Revolutions: The American Civil War and Italy 157 Chapter 9: The United States, Italy, and the Tribulations of the Liberal Nation 158 Notes 171 Chapter 10: Nation-Building, Civil War, and Social Revolution in the Confederate South and the Italian Mezzogiorno, 1860–1865 176 Notes 188 Part V: Race and Nationalism in Latin America and the Caribbean During the American Civil War Era 193 Chapter 11: Race and Revolution: The Confederacy, Mexico, and the Problem of Southern Nationalism 194 Notes 205 Chapter 12: Tocqueville’s Prophecy: The United States and the Caribbean, 1850–1871 209 Outline Placeholder 224 Notes 227 Chapter 13: Reconstructing Plantation Dominance in British Honduras: Race and Subjection in the Age of Emancipation 234 Notes 242 Index 246 Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction: The Electric Chain of Transnational History....Pages 1-12 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Seas?: Civil War Statecraft and the Liberal Quest for Oceanic Order....Pages 15-31 The American Civil War and the Transatlantic Triumph of Volitional Citizenship....Pages 33-48 Lincoln as the Great Educator: Opinion and Educative Liberalism in the Civil War Era....Pages 49-66 Front Matter....Pages 67-67 Southern Wealth, Global Profits: Cotton, Economic Culture, and the Coming of the Civil War....Pages 69-90 International Finance in the Civil War Era....Pages 91-106 Front Matter....Pages 107-107 Uprooted Emancipators: Transatlantic Abolitionism and the Politics of Belonging....Pages 109-126 Africa and the American Civil War: The Geopolitics of Freedom and the Production of Commons....Pages 127-148 Front Matter....Pages 149-149 The United States, Italy, and the Tribulations of the Liberal Nation....Pages 151-168 Nation-Building, Civil War, and Social Revolution in the Confederate South and the Italian Mezzogiorno, 1860–1865....Pages 169-185 Front Matter....Pages 187-187 Race and Revolution: The Confederacy, Mexico, and the Problem of Southern Nationalism....Pages 189-203 Tocqueville’s Prophecy: The United States and the Caribbean, 1850–1871....Pages 205-229 Reconstructing Plantation Dominance in British Honduras: Race and Subjection in the Age of Emancipation....Pages 231-242 Back Matter....Pages 243-253 Extrait de la 4e de couv. : "This volume of pioneering essays brings together an impressive array of well-established and emerging historians from Europe and the United States whose common endeavor is to situate America's Civil War within the wider framework of global history. These essays view the American conflict through a fascinating array of topical prisms that will take readers beyond the familiar themes of U.S. Civil War history. They will also take readers beyond the national boundaries that typically confine our understanding of this momentous conflict. The history of America's Civil War has typically been interpreted within a familiar national narrative focusing on the internal discord between North and South over the future of slavery in the United States."