American Civil Wars

A Continental History, 1850-1873

Alan Taylor (University of Virginia)

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Hardback

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English

Norton
05 July 2024

History; History of the Americas; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; American Civil War

In a fast-paced narrative of soaring ideals and sordid politics, of civil war and foreign invasion, the award-winning historian Alan Taylor presents a pivotal twenty-year period in which North America's three largest countries-the United States, Mexico, and Canada-all transformed themselves into nations. The American Civil War stands at the center of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrollment of Black soldiers in Union armies.

The outbreak of the Civil War created a continental power vacuum that allowed French forces to invade Mexico in 1862 and set up an empire ruled by a Habsburg archduke. This inflamed the ongoing power struggle between Mexico's Conservatives-landowners, the military, the Church-and Liberal supporters of social democracy, led ably by Benito Juarez. Along the southwestern border Mexico's Conservative forces made common cause with the Confederacy, while General James Carleton violently suppressed Apaches and Navajos in New Mexico and Arizona. When the Union triumph restored the continental balance of power, French forces withdrew, and Liberals consolidated a republic in Mexico.

Canada was meantime fending off a potential rupture between French-speaking Catholics in Quebec and English-speakers in Ontario. When Union victory raised the threat of American invasion, Canadian leaders pressed for a continent-wide confederation joined by a transcontinental railroad. The rollicking story of liberal ideals, political venality, and corporate corruption marked the dawn of the Gilded Age in North America.

By: Alan Taylor (University of Virginia)
Imprint: Norton
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 244mm, Width: 165mm, Spine: 43mm
Weight: 943g
ISBN: 9781324035282
ISBN 10: 1324035285
Pages: 560
Publication Date: 05 July 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alan Taylor, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History, is the author of American Revolutions and American Republics, prior volumes in his acclaimed continental history of the United States. He is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville.

Reviews for American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873

"""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"