This is a short historiography of significant academic books on the subject of how the American Civil War came to happen starting with a major work from 1975 ("academic" in this case means books by those with a PhD in history). It works under the assumption that history is a progressive discipline, with historians unearthing more and more information and creating new perspectives in nearly every decade since the beginning of the 20th century.
Another assumption, not detailed here, is that newer works carry forth what was accurately done by previous historians and discard perspectives that are now seen to be either old-fashioned or just wrong. That's the basis of historical revisionism which has been going on for a couple hundred years. Although the term "revisionism" is used pejoratively by people (I call them idiots) with a political agenda, all history is revisionist. Anyway, due to ongoing revisionism, we now know much more about how the Civil War came to happen than we did just 50 years ago.
We start in the 1970s because, before that, most histories of how the war came to happen, were written in the "States Rights" model. While this is still the rallying cry of Lost Causers, legitimate academic historians up until the 1970s who were not Lost Causers, still assumed that "States Rights" was the best explanation for the war. This changed rather suddenly with the 1975 publication of David Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1860. Potter showed that every instance of the "States Rights" talk was about slavery. It had been said before in some smaller books that the war was about slavery, but in this major work Potter proved it beyond any reasonable doubt. Since then academics agree (almost?) unanimously that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. The Impending Crisis is a landmark work in Civil War era history.
But Potter's work has some limitations. First, it only starts in 1848 at the end of the Mexican War. As will be shown, later historians go back much further. Second, it was a "Big Man" history, focusing on what the major politicians of the era were saying and doing through the 1850s.
We start in the 1970s because, before that, most histories of how the war came to happen, were written in the "States Rights" model. While this is still the rallying cry of Lost Causers, legitimate academic historians up until the 1970s who were not Lost Causers, still assumed that "States Rights" was the best explanation for the war. This changed rather suddenly with the 1975 publication of David Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1860. Potter showed that every instance of the "States Rights" talk was about slavery. It had been said before in some smaller books that the war was about slavery, but in this major work Potter proved it beyond any reasonable doubt. Since then academics agree (almost?) unanimously that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. The Impending Crisis is a landmark work in Civil War era history.
But Potter's work has some limitations. First, it only starts in 1848 at the end of the Mexican War. As will be shown, later historians go back much further. Second, it was a "Big Man" history, focusing on what the major politicians of the era were saying and doing through the 1850s.
This is the basic model of James McPherson's famous Battle Cry of Freedom (1988). Because he describes the coming of the war in about 300 pages and the war itself is another 600, McPherson doesn't have room to do much more. McPherson's perspective is somewhat different from Potter's on several issues, but it is not an overthrow of Potter's work in the way Potter's work was an overthrow of the works that came before it. After 36 years, McPherson's book is still the best one-volume, modern explanation of how the war came to happen and the war itself. By his own admission (see his introduction to the 2nd edition from 2002), this work is lacking any perspective on women's history. That's because women's history, a subset of the "New Social History" (see next paragraph), was just getting started in the 1980s. For an excellent early example of the new women's history in the antebellum era, see Christine Stansell's 1987 City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860.
But, in the 1970's, a new dimension started to become prominent in history in general, which significantly expands the view of the coming of the Civil War. This is called the "New Social History." Its focus changes from the "Big Men" of history to what lower class people, and a bit later to what women of all classes, were doing. Middle and lower class white men and slaves were added into the mix. While not a history on what led to the war, Eugene Genovese's 1977 Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made was major work that detailed the horrors of slavery. While much of it has been overturned by subsequent historians of slavery, it remains a landmark book on the subject.
The next significant work is a two-volume set by William Freehling The Road to Disunion (Vol. I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, 1990 and Vol II: Secessionists Triumph, 1854-1860, 2007). There are two basic differences between these books and those of Potter and McPherson. First, it doesn't start in 1848, but goes all the way back to the American Revolution to explain how the Civil War came to happen. Second, it is not only a "Big Man history", it includes extensive information on the world of slaves, making it a combination of Big Man history and the New Social history. And Freehling uncovered new information about the secessionist movement that hadn't been discussed before.
Another excellent two volume work on the coming of the war is John Ashworth's Slavery, Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, (Vol 1: Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850, 1996 and Vol 2: The Coming of the Civil War, 1850-1861, 2007). Interestingly, Ashworth is an English historian. I won't go into much detail about this other than to say it is more focused on economics than Freehling's works. While I would recommend reading Freehling first, for an interesting different take on how the war came to happen, I recommend reading this one after Freehling's and comparing the works of two excellent historians written about the same time.
Another fascinating work with yet another new perspective is Elizabeth Varon's 2008 Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859. What is unique about Varon's book is that she traces the changes in the usage of the word "Disunion" from the time of the Constitution until the war, showing how it went from being something feared to a battle cry for secession. This focus on linguistics is yet another example of the creativity of recent historians in revealing more about how the war came about.
Edward Baptist's 2016 Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism combines the enormous contribution that slavery made to the development of American capitalism while underscoring the horrors of slavery. This book made Baptist a widely discussed historian of the antebellum era, but an earlier book of his, Creating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier Before the Civil War, is an excellent study on conflict and violence between white men as slavery expanded southward and westward before the war.
But, in the 1970's, a new dimension started to become prominent in history in general, which significantly expands the view of the coming of the Civil War. This is called the "New Social History." Its focus changes from the "Big Men" of history to what lower class people, and a bit later to what women of all classes, were doing. Middle and lower class white men and slaves were added into the mix. While not a history on what led to the war, Eugene Genovese's 1977 Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made was major work that detailed the horrors of slavery. While much of it has been overturned by subsequent historians of slavery, it remains a landmark book on the subject.
The next significant work is a two-volume set by William Freehling The Road to Disunion (Vol. I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, 1990 and Vol II: Secessionists Triumph, 1854-1860, 2007). There are two basic differences between these books and those of Potter and McPherson. First, it doesn't start in 1848, but goes all the way back to the American Revolution to explain how the Civil War came to happen. Second, it is not only a "Big Man history", it includes extensive information on the world of slaves, making it a combination of Big Man history and the New Social history. And Freehling uncovered new information about the secessionist movement that hadn't been discussed before.
Another excellent two volume work on the coming of the war is John Ashworth's Slavery, Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, (Vol 1: Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850, 1996 and Vol 2: The Coming of the Civil War, 1850-1861, 2007). Interestingly, Ashworth is an English historian. I won't go into much detail about this other than to say it is more focused on economics than Freehling's works. While I would recommend reading Freehling first, for an interesting different take on how the war came to happen, I recommend reading this one after Freehling's and comparing the works of two excellent historians written about the same time.
Another fascinating work with yet another new perspective is Elizabeth Varon's 2008 Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859. What is unique about Varon's book is that she traces the changes in the usage of the word "Disunion" from the time of the Constitution until the war, showing how it went from being something feared to a battle cry for secession. This focus on linguistics is yet another example of the creativity of recent historians in revealing more about how the war came about.
Edward Baptist's 2016 Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism combines the enormous contribution that slavery made to the development of American capitalism while underscoring the horrors of slavery. This book made Baptist a widely discussed historian of the antebellum era, but an earlier book of his, Creating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier Before the Civil War, is an excellent study on conflict and violence between white men as slavery expanded southward and westward before the war.
That ends this short histography of significant books on how the Civil War came to happen. I read many books on the American Civil War between 2006 and 2017, then turned my attention to other history topics. So there may be important works on the topic since then that I do not know about and maybe some within those years I don't know about. But these are the best of the one's I do know about.
No comments:
Post a Comment