It was no coincidence that the Civil War occurred during an age of
violent political upheaval in Europe and the Americas. Grounding
the causes and philosophies of the Civil War in an international
context, Andre M. Fleche examines how questions of national
self-determination, race, class, and labor the world over
influenced American interpretations of the strains on the Union and
the growing differences between North and South. Setting familiar
events in an international context, Fleche enlarges our
understanding of nationalism in the nineteenth century, with
startling implications for our understanding of the Civil War.
Confederates argued that European nationalist movements provided
models for their efforts to establish a new nation-state, while
Unionists stressed the role of the state in balancing order and
liberty in a revolutionary age. Diplomats and politicians used such
arguments to explain their causes to thinkers throughout the world.
Fleche maintains that the fight over the future of republican
government in America was also a battle over the meaning of
revolution in the Atlantic world and, as such, can be fully
understood only as a part of the world-historical context in which
it was fought.