American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873

by Alan Taylor

A Pulitzer Prize winner’s masterful history of the 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 center 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.

Genres: History, American History, Civil War, Nonfiction, Audiobook, American Civil War, United States

560 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 2024

About the author

Alan Shaw Taylor is a historian specializing in early American history. He is the author of a number of books about colonial America, the American Revolution, and the Early American Republic. He has won a Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for his work.

Taylor graduated from Colby College, in Waterville, Maine, in 1977 and earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1986. Currently a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, he will join the faculty of the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia in 2014.

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Taylor's latest volume, American Civil Wars extends his "continental history" through the mid-19th Century, when America descended into its bloodiest crisis, Mexico fell victim to internal discord and French invasion and Canada's complicated road towards Confederation. Taylor expertly demonstrates how all three countries, despite their outward differences, were riven by deep-seated divisions (slavery in the United States; class and racial divisions in Mexico; Canada's Anglo-French cleavage and debates over loyalty to the English crown) that both propelled and hindered their historical development; the United States, after nearly a century of papering over the slavery issue, found it inflamed to a point where compromise and appeasement could no longer. Taylor, as usual, is devastating both towards Southern slaveholders who wished to expand their empire at all costs, and Northern politicians who appeased them for the sake of national comity - and the racism that animated both sides. He's equally skilled at sketching out the Liberal-Conservative divide in Mexico, which led to a civil war as the entrenched powers resisted the reforms advocated by Benito Juarez and his followers - resulted in financial disaster that instigated foreign intervention and France's installation of Maximilian on that country's throne. (The Canadian side of things is more thinly sketched, but then the Red River Rebellion can't really compare to Gettysburg or Puebla on the scale of historical clashes.) Taylor's book is good in broad strokes and anecdotal details (like the bizarre "Clown Riot" that wracked Toronto in 1855, or the career of pioneering journalist-Manifest Destiny advocate Jane Cazneau); the debates over slavery, the political agonies of America's Civil War and Mexico's own troubles, the plight of indigenous people and African-Americans, slave and free, are all ably sketched. And the broader focus allows us to see the contentious, constantly fluctuating relationship between the US and its sister countries, who (not unreasonably) feared invasion either by filibusters or formal armies for years after the Civil War - and how Britain and France's imperial ambitions were impacted by America's near-dissolution. But I've always felt that these large-scale histories don't utilize Taylor's talents to their fullest: excellent in focused books like The Divided Ground, Taylor's American books tend to sketch subjects of peripheral interest while slighting other topics. You'll get, for instance, several paragraphs of detailed backstory on John Brown, then a sentence or two on the Harper's Ferry Raid. While such an approach has its uses in emphasizes the personal over textbook battles and elections, it also leads to a book that feels unbalanced and sometimes perfunctory, checking off the Big Events when Taylor's interest lies elsewhere. Like all of Taylor's books, American Civil Wars is readable, interesting and occasionally thought-provoking, yet fails to measure up to similar big picture works like James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom or Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation.

[Caleb Fogler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taylor shows how the American Civil War was intertwined with Mexico’s war and the internal politics of both Canada and Mexico. Like how it focused mostly on the grand strategy of the civil war campaigns and the public relations side of the war instead of a detailed analysis of battle strategy. There are a few instances of detailed battle maneuver and battlefield stories included however. My favorite was of a battle I had very little knowledge of, the Battle of Stones River, outside of Murpheesboro, TN. On the eve of battle the two sides had a music battle where the army bands played their fight songs until one band began playing “Home! Sweet Home!” to which the other band joined in with soldiers singing together from across battle lines.

The foreign affairs of Canada and Mexico and how it was impacted by the American Civil War was the most surprising aspect of the book for me as I didn’t realize the magnitude of the war on European politics. These events and others throughout the book were given perspective from the people living through this time by newspaper quotes from this time as well as individuals’ quotes who were experiencing the events first hand. Overall I thought it was engaging and informative.

[Colleen Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am greatly appreciative of Taylor for writing this book. Although most of the American Civil War information is not new to me, much of the information about the continental upheavals is and it is all tied together.

Taylor does a great job of research and then analyzes and puts it all together, The reader gets a keen sense of the amount of strife happening during this time. Mexico was of course engaged in civil wars to determine its future, not without interference from the Americans and Americans were still interested in wresting Canada into the U.S. Canadians were also fighting amongst themselves to determine what its relationship to Britain would be and whether all of what is currently Canada would join together. The French of Quebec and the Anglos from much of the rest of the country fought against one another for dominance. In the end, the boundaries set at that time would remain. Very good read.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. This book was way better than the reviews I had read about it. The narrative was brisk and lively, the character sketches were all very well done. The author achieved the difficult task of conveying a dry subject matter without it seeming dry. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to deepen their knowledge about 19th century North American history. Overall, a very good effort.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great big picture view of the entire continent's struggle with rule of law, systems of government in the mid-nineteenth century.

[Jarrod Keeling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book that broadens the traditional Civil War narrative to the whole North American continent. Unfortunately, it was published a few weeks after Erik Larson’s book on the Civil War, which stole the spotlight for the time being.

I hope everyone interested in US history reads Alan Taylor’s Continental Series.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taylor's work is really great in general, and I'm trying to read his entire American history series. I really admire his commitment to casting American history in a continental lens, and I use American Colonies all the time for teaching.

However, I found this book to be a mixed bag, as I thought it had a kind of identity crisis. It's a little too long for the general reader, and it covers a lot of ground that most reasonably well-versed history readers (not to mention professors) will already know well. For example, there's far too much campaign history of the Civil War in this book, which was strongest when it was connecting themes and ideas across the North American continent rather than narrating familiar history. I think the book could have been a good 50 pages shorter if it had been more narrowly focused.

That being said, my big takeaway from this book was that the period covered in the book witnessed the consolidation of 3 North American nations as federal republics (or in the British case, a more unified parliamentary dominion). Each struggled with centrifgual political forces and resistance to nationalization and centralization: in the US, this was obviously the Civil War, the conflict over slavery, and the contest over whether we would be a loose confederation or a federal republic and single nation. In Mexico, this took the form of low-level fighting between aristocrats/monarchists and republicans led by Juarez, a conflict that peaked in the war to expel the French in the 1860s. This process wasn't as violent in Canada, but there was significant conflict between the Anglo-Canadians and the French and even an invasion from American Fenians. This ended in Confederation in the 1860s and the formation of Canada as a Dominion of the UK and a de facto independent nation. In fact, the centripetal political process of Canada and Mexico were driven heavily by the threat from the US, which had tried (and in the case of Mexico, succeeded) in annexing their land a number of times.

This book definitely helped me see the struggle btw liberal republican nationalism and the forces of regionalism, conservatism, and racial supremacy in each of these societies, and how the former largely won these struggles (although with massive qualifications).

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Rewarding History of the American Civil War Era

Alan Taylor's 2023 book American Civil Wars is a significant improvement over his 2021 work American Republics. In American Republics, Taylor attempted to present a continental history of the United States through a series of disconnected accounts of various breakaway, rebel, and secessionist movements in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Unfortunately, this approach resulted in an unfocused narrative that lacked a clear theme, making it a less rewarding read.

In contrast, American Civil Wars is a much stronger effort. By concentrating on the few decades leading up to and following the Civil War, Taylor provides a more coherent and detailed history. He not only covers the Civil War itself but also delves into the contemporaneous events in Mexico and Canada. The instability caused by the American Civil War spills over into neighboring countries, with Mexico facing invasions by French forces and frequent leadership changes. Meanwhile, Canada contends with the influx of American abolitionists and the growing abolitionist movements and tension between Anglo and French Canadians.

Though the book is primarily a history of the American Civil War, Taylor's inclusion of significant events in Mexico and Canada adds a valuable expanded perspective. However, some readers might find that the book still focuses too heavily on the Civil War, missing the opportunity to explore the histories of Mexico and Canada more thoroughly.

Despite this, American Civil Wars remains an engaging and well-researched history, offering a broader view of the era that is both informative and welcome.

[Lou Chodosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent look at North America in mid 19th century. Learned quite a bit about Canada and Mexico , especially in context to US at that time. Certainly added to my understanding of the era.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this but it’s not really a history of the American civil war, so if you’re looking for that particular info, it’s more of an overview of the conflict and also what was going on around the same time. I’d just finished McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, which Taylor uses as a source, so I had that and I enjoyed the larger picture

[Douglas Noakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor documents the roughly twenty years in the middle of the 19th Century when all three North American nations underwent a momentous transformation into nationhood. I had a lot of prior knowledge about the US Civil War, less about the occupation of Mexico by the Second Empire of Napoleon III, and even less about the rise of Dominion unity for Canada under Prime Minister John A. Macdonald.

Taylor's narrative gives the reader an excellent overview of the key players in these intertwining conflicts. Mexico's occupation would never have occurred if the American Republic had not been torn asunder by the slavery question and the impossibility of compromise between Lincoln and the Southern leaders. Having lost half her territory to the US Army in the Mexican War, Mexico was also weakened by corrupt and fractious conservative governments, resistance to reform by landed conservative and clerical authorities, and debts to foreign bankers.

Canada faced rifts between all her regions: the Anglophonic Canada West (Ontario) the French-speaking Canada East (Quebec), and the Maritime Provinces (the latter having much more direct trade with their British homeland than her near neighbors). There was also the question of how to bring sparsely populated British Columbia and Manitoba into the dominion fold. Pressure from American settlers and US border state politicians looked to bring American sovereignty over the 49th Parallel.

Besides the leadership battles in Washington, Mexico City, Paris London, Toronto, Montreal, etc., Taylor also shifts focus to figures like Martin Delany, a black abolitionist who became a Union Army major (the highest rank an African-American was allowed to achieve) and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a woman who supported both equal rights for women and one of the first black women to obtain a law degree in the United States.

It's a very compelling read. Even those with knowledge of the American Civil War (or Canadian and Mexican history) will likely glean a better understanding of how the fates of citizens of all three great North American nations are intrinsically linked.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taylor remains my favorite historical writer. His style is straightforward and easy to read--even though he's a multiple Pulitzer prize-winning historian, I was still able to assign sections of his previous books to my middle schoolers without worrying about the accessibility of the prose. I admire those who can write about complicated topics in uncomplicated language. And his ability to find the perfect quote, primary source, or anecdote to illustrate a point is unmatched. I also often find Taylor's storytelling very funny, which may be unintentional, but is nonetheless rare in historical writing.

This book is the fourth in Taylor's series of "continental histories" of North America (American Colonies, American Revolutions, American Republics being the first three). As someone well-versed in the American Civil War, I didn't expect to learn so much from this book, but I did because of the "continental" framing--Taylor connects, in compelling ways, the civil wars in Mexico and the United States with sectional tensions in Canada to tell a story of mutual nation building in each country.

Continuing themes from his previous books, Taylor strips away many of the mythical understandings of our past to reveal a history filled with chaos, contingencies, incoherent ideologies, and bloodbaths. Although starring the occasional semi-normal person, the narrative mainly features a colorful cast of complete dipshits, scam artists, drunks, cold-blooded murderers, and fanatical freaks bumbling their way in and out of power, from one crisis to another. It's been said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. If that's true, then Taylor's a poet, as well.

[James Davisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alan Taylor's wonderful project, providing a continental view of American history that shows its connections, rivalries, and tensions with polities to the north, south, and west, continues in fine form here with the Civil War era.

He shows, for example, how the American Civil War provided cover for Mexico's elites to oust their liberal republican government in favor of a European-style monarchy, how Americans' disresfion with war relieved Canadian anxiety that their violent neighbors would invade and annex their country, and how the Union's Republican leadership used wartime power to displace Indigenous peoples in the West and begin transforming it into a place for striving individuals to extract and build personal wealth.

The end of the war brought opportunity to reverse Mexico's fortunes and restore its republic, as the Union was free to lend military aid and diplomatic support to Benito Juarez's government; conversely, seeing the Union's renewed strength (and huge, idle army!) led Canadians to strengthen their own system by confederation with other British colonies and territories to form (most of) the modern Dominion of Canada.

All of this wonderful contextual material for the war is skillfully interleaved with a compact, cogent rendering of the events of the war itself, and of the political crises that led to it, and which came after in the reconstruction era. A triumph!

[Matt Lennert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fast moving and cinematic historical writing which does a terrific job of tying the events of all three North American countries together into an interdependent timeline. The American Civil War is the central event but the arrival of Maximillian in Mexico and the coming together of the Canadian Dominion during the same period—each responding to the ebb and flow of the US battles taking place over 1861–1865–is fresh perspective to me. Most Civil War history I read is purely a north/south investigation. This book wastes no time moving between events and still feels like supported, evidentiary history. I thought it was a great read that brought a new way of looking at the events of the 1850s to the 1870s. Highly recommend.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) What makes this work particularly effective is that it accounts for Mexico and Canada. The US Civil War did not happen just in a vacuum, and its impacts were not merely contained within American borders. The ramifications of the lead-up to the war, the fighting itself, and the aftermath had significant impacts on the political fortunes of the neighbors. Mexico would find itself under the flag of the French/Austro-Hungarians, leading to its own foreign entanglements, but the US nearly found itself deploying forces to invade. Canada did not quite suffer the threat of US engagement, even if there were some near misses, but the politics of the nation could not escape the influence of the US Civil War.

Outside of consideration of the rest of the continent, the analysis of the US Civil War is fairly straightforward, looking at all aspects of the engagement. It is definitely not in favor of states’ rights, but it is not the end-all, be-all for analysis of the fighting. Overall, a solid contribution to Civil War conflict, especially for international implications. The rating is the same regardless of the format.

[Chris McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, comparing what was going on in Mexico and Canada during the American Civil War. It was engaging, and I like the way the narrative bounced back and forth between the 3 nations. Sometimes reading about US history, it's presented in a vacuum, so getting the full continental perspective was refreshing.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic history that places the US Civil War in its place
In a continental history. Learned so much about interactions between US, Canada, Mexico.

[Max D'onofrio · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book from Alan Taylor I have read. I enjoyed that it covered all of North American during the Civil War era. A very approachable writer, I have already started reading his others books in his series on the Americas.

[Stan Prager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like politics, all history is local, at least at first. It seldom remains that way. Key events in one geography almost always send fierce if perhaps unacknowledged echoes elsewhere. Chroniclers preoccupied with the action unfolding at the center often neglect the effects upon far distant edges. More than sixty thousand books have been published on the American Civil War, but few examine the outsize influence of the conflict beyond the borders of the United States and the then-Confederacy. A notable exception in the literature (although not specifically a Civil War book) is Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton, which describes how the stifling of cotton exports from southern ports sparked a mad scramble for new sources of raw material that saw the heavy hand of British imperialism utterly transform the countryside of the Indian subcontinent—eight thousand miles away from Fort Sumter! American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 [2024], a powerful, insightful, and extremely well-written narrative by historian Alan Taylor, points to dramatic impacts much closer to home.
The central cause of the Civil War was human chattel slavery, which powered the economies of the southern slave states. Studies have established that the slave system of agriculture was highly destructive of environments, and thus required aggressive expansion to new lands in order to thrive. To this end, and with the full (if often tacit) support of plantation and political elites, adventurers known as “filibusters” looked to occupy and annex locales in the West Indies and Central America. But the mother lode of wide open spaces turned out to be the vast territories in the west and southwest obtained by conquest in the Mexican War, jealously lusted after by both the southern slaveocracy and northern Free-Soilers. Neither had concerns for dispossessed Mexicans nor the indigenous. Or African Americans, for that matter: southerners would have them only as enslaved laborers, while northerners would ban them absolutely. Lincoln’s election foreclosed the spread of slavery to the territories, and seven states seceded, then four more after shots were fired at Sumter.
Typically, what then follows is the familiar story of Bull Run to Appomattox baked into most Civil War accounts, but Taylor, a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar whose body of work has dwelled predominately on the Early Republic, stands apart from most historians in approach and perspective with a thought-provoking fresh analysis of ground otherwise exhaustively covered before. Moreover, Taylor ever compels the reader to not simply look back to what was as we now know it, but rather to consider what might have been, in a time when there were many possibilities, and nothing had yet been decided.
It is this notion that brilliantly shapes his earlier book, American Colonies, which skillfully underscores that boundaries later stenciled in on maps of North America and the West Indies were hardly preordained, that what came to form those thirteen colonies that turned into the United States could very well have encompassed a larger—or, for that matter, smaller—area consisting of other regions then controlled by the French, British, Spanish, and Amerindians. Taylor later has American Colonies serve as the first volume in a series that to date includes American Revolutions, American Republics, and the latest, American Civil Wars. The plural in “Civil Wars” is deliberate, because there is indeed more than one going on in various corners of the continent, including a shooting war in Mexico, a political one in Canada, and something that is a bit of both in the rapidly shrinking lands once exclusively occupied by Native Americans. And all of it is informed by the twin principles that guided nineteenth century America: the Monroe Doctrine, that proscribed interference in the Americas by foreign powers, and Manifest Destiny, that promised the whole of the continent to the United States.
Some of the best content in American Civil Wars leaves the war between Washington and Richmond behind, and takes a deep dive much further south. Like many former colonies, Mexico was plagued by political instability after winning its independence from Spain in 1808, which was exacerbated by tensions in a highly stratified society marked by a gulf between a tiny slice of wealthy landowners and the masses of desperately impoverished landless peasants. In the twenty-five years that preceded the American Civil War, nation-building was further crippled by a series of land grabs by the United States that stripped Mexico of more than a third of its territory. The first was the loss of Texas, a region settled by invitation to Americans who established a slave society. Mexico’s abolition of slavery and other factors led to an armed conflict supported by the US that resulted first in Texas independence and then annexation. The greater blow, of course, came as a result of the Mexican War, a blatant act of armed aggression by the Polk Administration that obtained present-day California, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. The so-called Mexican Cession amounted to an enormous steal of an astonishing 529,000 square miles. Later, Mexico was strong-armed into ceding even more territory in the Gadsden Purchase.
Beset by its own series of civil wars, and deeply in debt to European powers, the Liberal Republic of Benito Juárez—which had routed reactionary forces on the battlefield—was no match for French adventurism encouraged, indeed invited in, by defeated Mexican conservatives. The French crushed resistance and placed a hapless Hapsburg archduke on the throne as Emperor Maximilian I. The Monroe Doctrine proved to be no deterrent. Republicans in Congress sympathetic to Mexican democracy bristled, but Lincoln was not only fully preoccupied with saving the Union, but worried that a strong rebuke might provoke France to recognize the Confederacy. Meanwhile, Richmond imagined an alliance with Maximilian that would entice France to do just that. In a masterful treatment of the many moving parts here of war, diplomacy, socioeconomic factors, and much more, Taylor succeeds in shifting the focus so that the reader’s perspective is dramatically redirected to view the fractured United States from the Mexican side of the border, a significant accomplishment.
Taylor just as adeptly goes north to explore the dynamic in a then still divided British Canada, anxious at what a restored union to her south by a powerful neighbor further emboldened by victory could mean for her territorial integrity. This tension had a very long history. In American Colonies, Taylor reminds us that in slightly altered circumstances parts of Canada could very well have been incorporated into the United States. In American Revolutions, he chronicles how colonists were angered that the treaty that concluded the French & Indian War also protected much-coveted French Quebec (later dubbed “Lower Canada”), adding to the catalog of grievances that would subsequently foment rebellion and lead to independence. Those hostilities were marked by a failed invasion, and the Battle of Quebec. After the war, loyalists fled to Canada’s west, present-day Ontario, then termed “Upper Canada.” Communities on both sides of the border formed strong trade and cultural relationships, intertwined with the region’s native tribes, which were ruptured by the War of 1812 and another series of failed invasions by the Americans, a story superbly rendered in Taylor’s The Civil War of 1812. When the British, exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars, made peace from an existing stalemate that likely would have gone badly for the United States in the longer term, the result was a mutual respect for US-Canadian borders that endured for decades.
American Civil Wars describes how that respect grew more tenuous in the Antebellum as stress cracks widened. As enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act grew more vigorous, for the enslaved seeking liberty the most secure terminus of the Underground Railroad became Canadian soil, which infuriated slaveowners seeking to have their “property” restored. Blacks were treated favorably at first, but as their numbers grew so did racism and resentment towards immigrants competing for jobs and resources. During the Civil War, diplomatic tensions with the British extended to Canada, as well, which although officially neutral was openly sympathetic to the Confederate cause. Richmond attempted to open a second front in Montréal and Toronto, leading most famously to the raid on St. Albans, Vermont. But as the fortunes of the south faded, and rumblings could be detected in the United States of a reenergized Manifest Destiny that had seized lands to the west and south and was now looking north once more, self-preservation fueled a sense of urgency for unity among the various provinces. The result was the landmark 1867 Canadian Confederation that set forces in motion that within a few years brought all of Canada east and west together as a single entity, better capable of resisting appetites for expansion from Washington.
A consistent theme in Taylor’s works are the marginalized peoples frequently neglected in other histories, especially Native Americans. This time the author focuses on competing attempts by the Union and the Confederacy to recruit the indigenous as allies, such that the Civil War saw the phenomenon of various tribes fighting for the Blue or the Gray. Of course, before, during, and especially after the war, Federal forces employed brutal tactics to put down native peoples, seizing their lands on false pretexts, driving them to starvation by hunting the bison to near extinction, forcing them into reservations known for appalling conditions, and occasionally massacring entire villages. Whatever side they chose, Native Americans always lost.
Those who turned to Taylor’s latest book chiefly for yet another history of the American Civil War may come away disappointed, because that is hardly the main event in this volume. Still, that can be deceiving, because he does devote much print to a fast-paced summary. Indeed, sometimes fast-paced seems to turn into a veritable sprint, and along with that comes some unfortunate missteps. Taylor recycles the long-disproven canard that the term “hooker” was derived from prostitutes accompanying the army of Major General Joseph Hooker, when in fact that moniker dates back to the 1840s. There are also some issues with interpretation, as when he unfairly castigates Meade for failing to pursue Lee with appropriate alacrity after Gettysburg, which aligns with Lincoln’s view at the time but now has largely been discarded by scholars of the campaign.
Still, none of this is fatal, and if I winced here and there it is only because I have spent decades chasing down the Civil War. Moreover, such quibbles are more than offset by the triumph of the final product, which not only enriches the historiography but does so in an engaging style accessible to audiences both popular and academic. The beauty in nearly every work by Alan Taylor is that each leaves the reader treating what was once familiar territory as uncertain terrain demanding reevaluation. So too American Civil Wars. But the real triumph this time is that those turning its final pages will no longer again be capable of thinking about the war without considering its ramifications elsewhere—no small achievement indeed!




NOTE: This review is dedicated to Dr. Peter Carmichael, Director of the Civil War Institute (CWI) at Gettysburg College, a remarkable scholar, educator, and friend whose recent untimely death is an incalculable loss to the historical community. Pete was a huge supporter of my work, introducing me to others in the field with praise I hardly felt I deserved, but which left me deeply flattered because of my admiration for him. He will be much missed by all who knew him.

NOTE: I reviewed other works by Alan Taylor here:

Review of: American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804, by Alan Taylor
Review of: Thomas Jefferson’s Education, by Alan Taylor
Review of: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and the War in Virginia 1772-1832, by Alan Taylor
Review of: The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies by Alan Taylor
Review of: American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850, by Alan Taylor

NOTE: I reviewed the Beckert book here:

Review of: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert


Review of: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873, by Alan Taylor – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2024/08/18/review-...

[Kristopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great prologue. Loved the thesis. A little heavy on the US Civil War’s nitty gritty, felt it lost the thread a bit of “this is how North American internal conflict was roiling the continent” there and towards the end.

[Gavin Koenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid history of the Civil War but what it also does it inform you if the implications of the war across the continent and what was going on in Mexico and Canada during the late 19th century. A bit boring but definitely informative and learned some new stuff

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in his previous books on North American history, Alan Taylor takes a holistic approach to the American Civil War.

He examines how different regions (not just North and South) were impacted by the Civil War, including the mid-West (particularly Missouri and Kansas), Canada, Mexico, and Native Americans.

The author casts slavery as the primary reason for the Civil War.

Page 125 in 1859

An Atlanta newspaper declared “We regard every man in our midst an enemy to the institutions of the South, who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing.”

Page 142 1861

The new constitution [of the Confederacy] barred any state from ever abolishing slavery.

With the U.S. constantly expanding Westward and Southward (into Mexico), the South wanted the potential new states to allow slavery, otherwise they would be outnumbered in the U.S. Congress and Senate.

There were several contentious issues around slavery. Even though many Northerners disagreed with slavery, they were loath to empower Black people politically. There were only a few Northern States where Black people had the right to vote. Often, Black people were socially ostracized – or worse. There was the Fugitive Slave Act, in which Northern States were legally obliged to return escaped slaves to their “owners” in the South. Sometimes this was adhered to, and sometimes not, due to the “Underground Railroad” to Canada.

As the author explains (and he dwelt on this in his previous volumes) the U.S. was not a unified country, but a collection of state entities each having their own laws and each fearing a centralization of power. In a sense, the end result of the Civil War united the country more than it had ever been.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Canada and Mexico saw it as a relief because they had always feared – and had both undergone, invasions by their strong, populous, and aggressive neighbor. Southerners still looked at Mexico as a land to expand slavery. Mexico was fractious and did not have a strong unified central government, making it vulnerable. Canada had the protection of the British Empire.

Europe also saw and exploited opportunities. France invaded Mexico in December 1861 in order to establish a monarchy, which they partially accomplished by appointing Archduke Maximilian as emperor. He was supported by both the French Army and conservatives in Mexico. They occupied only a part of Mexico, including Mexico City. Benito Juárez, the Republican leader, held on; and at the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War, France was forced to abandon its imperialistic adventure and Maximilian was executed. Due to this, Europe turned away from Mexico, with the result that Mexico was forced to deal almost exclusively with the U.S.

Page 352

Only the American Civil War had permitted Napoleon III and Maximilian to pursue their Mexican empire.

Canada also felt threatened – more so at the end of the Civil War, with an immense Union Army nearby. Canadians formed a country in 1867, uniting the Eastern Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with Quebec and Ontario (formerly Lower and Upper Canada). But both Canada and the U.S. wanted the West – more so after the U.S. bought Alaska in October 1867.

Canada’s Prime Minister (John A. MacDonald), along with support from Great Britain, managed to convince the region of British Columbia on the West Coast, to unite with Canada. British Columbia had been threatening to join with the U.S. The promise of a transcontinental railroad by Prime Minister MacDonald helped to clinch the deal.

Page 382 John A. MacDonald, 1967

“If Canada is to remain a Country separate from the United States, it is of great importance that they [the U.S.] should not… intercept the route to the Pacific.”

Page 381

Unlike American institutions, which dwelled on individual rights to liberty, the Canadian version included the British colonial formula that mandated “Peace, Order, and good Government.”

Many aspects of the Civil War outlined by the author are familiar. The North was just so much stronger than the South in terms of population and manufacturing.

Page 69

Seven-eights of immigrants settled in the northern states, and immigration surged during the 1840s, when the North’s population grew 20 percent faster than the South’s.

Southerners were self-contradictory in their assertions concerning Black people. They saw Black people as indolent, yet they feared a violent uprising by them. They feared Black men taking their women, yet white males raped Black slave women, as evidenced by the many mulatto offspring.

The level of violence at all levels of society was staggering.

Page 129

In 1860, armed confrontation became routine on the House and Senate floors. Senator James H. Hammond of South Carolina noted, “The only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers.”

The word “freedom” had different parameters for differing parts of society.

Pager 128-29 Sarah Lois Wadley, age 16 of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1860

They shout Freedom and Union, but they would take away our freedom and give it to the negro.

There were pronounced cultural differences between North and South – possibly due to the lack of immigration to Southern States.

Page 153

Most southerners believed in more traditional, patriarchal families, where men called the shots at home and beyond. They frowned on women taking a public role… By practicing gender differently, each side saw the other as acting unnaturally.

Aside from the ties to imperial Great Britain, this statement below is somewhat relevant to Canadians today:

Page 130

[Canadians] cherished an imperial tie that kept at bay their numerous, powerful, and vulgar neighbors, the Americans.

Lincoln did vacillate over slavery, and he played a wily political game. He knew that many Northerners despised and were frightened of an influx of Black slaves from the South – so he had to juggle this with his abolitionist supporters. He had to deal and coax the Border States to remain in the Union and so permitted slavery in Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. He eventually allowed the enlistment of Black men in the Union Army with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.

Page 229

Republicans [the party of Lincoln] drew the West more fully within the Union’s economic and political orbit by disposing Indians and fending off Confederates asserting their own claims. Unionists also sought to contain a challenge by Mormons who had settled in the Great Basin (Nevada), where they offered an alternative society.

It also meant the total disenfranchisement of Native peoples in the West, leading to campaigns of genocide.

Page 261

Indians paid in land to improve the lot of citizens [settlers], who got free farms, higher education, and better transportation [from railroads].

The aftermath of the Civil War is also examined. There were missed opportunities. Reconstruction (aiding slaves to cope with their new-found “freedom”) were thwarted by the new President Andrew Johnson. There was anarchy in the South.

Page 387 in 1865

A Georgia woman lamented, “We have no currency, no law, save the primitive code that might makes right.”

Page 393

Grand juries indicted over 500 Texans for murdering Blacks in 1865 and 1866, but the courts convicted not a single suspect.

Page 405

By the mid-1870s… Republicans joined Democrats in enabling southern states to restore white supremacy.

Page 410 Cora Tappan 1869

A government that has for nearly a century enslaved one race (African), that proscribes another (Chinese), proposes to exterminate another (Indian), and presently refuses to recognize the rights of one-half of its citizens (women), cannot justly be called perfect.

[Tascha Folsoi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alan Taylor is a writer who excels at contextualizing the complexity of history by creating a sort of ancestral snapshot of each person and event and placing them on a family tree, showing both their relationships to one another and to their time. This approach increases readers’ abilities to build those understandings on their own in other readings, about other times. That’s cool. In this book, he upends a more static understanding of North and South and provides a kaleidoscope of complexity with regards to individuals and social groups from regions both within and outside of our borders.

Now stick with me here: When I was a kid, I watched the musical "West Side Story." The Jets were the poor white kids. Like many kids at the bottom of the social hierarchy, they found in gang life acceptance and the possibility for status that seemed otherwise beyond their reach. In retrospect, I know that the story was set in a time when those kids were facing two new pressures: first by the gentrification and urban renewal projects headed by Robert Moses, and second by a wave of Puerto Rican immigration. But the audience was never asked to consider what we know to be the highly consequential and very painful displacement policies pursued by Moses. If they didn't live in that time and place, they would likely have been oblivious to the victims of eminent domain, families torn apart, and the small-time kings made and ruined by the upheaval.

When I was young, maybe ten or so, I was quite confused about the cause of the conflict in "West Side Story," but it sure seemed really sad and all. I grew up in a still fairly young West Los Angeles, filled with empty lots in a sprawling community with so much space it was lonely; no one was competing for any corners, and it was a rare excitement to spot another kid half a block down to play with. Nobody ever mentioned that the Southwest had been built on the site of America’s most violent agricultural and urban and agricultural renewal/gentrification projects ever: the dispossession of both indigenous people and their Mexican and Spanish conquerors. My parents explained to me that "West Side Story" was a modernization of "Romeo and Juliet," which A) I hadn’t read and B) no one at that time seemed aware that "Romeo and Juliet" used a complex historical feud between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines to stand in for the contemporaneous power struggles in Elizabethan England between Catholics and Protestants. It was a decontextualized reference to a decontextualized history, a story presented as a solitary point and not part of a throughline.

Unlike "West Side Story" or "Romeo and Juliet," real-life conflicts– even the most local ones– are often more like particles at the center of a non-unified central field of far-flung global forces. We can think of these forces as the economic pressures, political alliances, cultural shifts, and historical grievances that are more dynamic and chaotic than simple narratives put forth. Yet we have been largely conditioned to look just at the particle, making reality less legible as we seek out a story with a recognizable narrative, enframed expressly for us to be able to mine it for a few resonant themes.

In this book, Alan Taylor displays his unique brilliance at making legible the complex interplay of extremely diverse international, national, and factional agendas, political aspirations, people’s attachment to their political and social worldviews, economic aspirations, their bluster, their denial, and their honest – if not always successful – efforts. Quoting from a mind-bogglingly large reading list of academic sources, newspapers, diaries, and other historical documents, he brings people back to life in such a way that you could mentally animate what role these historical figures would play today on the world stage or even in a more intimate setting of your own office politics. He makes the complexity and uncertainty decipherable so that we can think about it, argue about it, and explore it just as we would events with which we are familiar today.

A true love of history and our understanding of humanity at present are not served by infatuation with imagined, polished heroes but by complex accounts and considerations of character, influences, dreams, successes, and failures that reveal how these elements are the common denominators in all lives and across all times. Taylor does this superbly for figures North, South, enslaved, free, freed Blacks, embittered whites, Mexican, Spanish, Canadian, British, French, and Indigenous. He juxtaposes Maximilian’s wife, Carlota, sister of Leopold II, who placed faith in herself and in her husband to transform Mexico through better monarchy, with the far more egalitarian Benito Juárez, who ultimately subordinated the lives of the indigenous people in capitulating to a rising oligarchy of American investors who could rebuild Mexico. Both Carlota and Juarez are driven to varying degrees of madness by the results of their efforts.

We see members of the former Confederacy who rue their violent support for the perverse and cruel institution of slavery once the war is over, alongside others who will stop at nothing to bring back the old order. And we see Northerners, who in wartime decried slavery with a furious ardor, eventually languishing in their duty to their fellows after the war was over. There are warriors for justice, warriors for oppression, realists, capitulators, power brokers, and pawns. Even the best, who are not depleted of passionate intensity for doing right, must contend with an ecosystem of others’ dreams and aspirations, which all too often run afoul of the righteous. In the end, we may be judged by others and by ourselves for what we’ve wished for: either peace and fairness or war and acquisition at any price.

The book serves as a reminder to plant the right seeds and dream the right dreams…for everybody’s children. Because when the harshest frost melts away, something new will grow.

[Edgar Guedez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good History Book

Twenty years that change history and the Americas. Even though the civil war ended slavery at a humongous cost, it it failed to bring social justice a d civil rights to the population of the country. It was not until 1920 that women were granted voting rights. And some problems and divisions persist nowdays.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a U.S. History PhD, there wasn’t much that was new to me in this book. I was expecting it to include more information on Mexico and Canada and how they intersected with the U.S. during the time period. For example, Taylor recaps the U.S. War of the Southern Rebellion in a streamlined but typical battle-focused play-by-play, but didn’t describe a single Mexican Civil War battle. There were certainly a handful of places in the book when he included a quote that was new to me, or details about a famous person that I didn’t recall reading before (such as Roger B Taney’s refusal to take his wife on a healthy vacation, a stubbornness that directly resulted in the deaths of both his wife and daughter within months!). But there were also times when I was shocked that Taylor, one of our best living U.S. historians, didn’t include key information. A couple examples to illustrate:

A) Taylor didn’t cover women’s contributions to the U.S. Civil War at all. Zero. Zip. In mentioning women’s work before the war, he simply said in passing that women didn’t work outside the home. This is stunning, given that ALL black women worked outside the home, and most working class women of other races did as well. Not to mention that the agricultural work that many American Indian women did was work outside the home.

B) He presented the famous Abraham Lincoln quotation at face value

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Again, this is shocking that a U.S historian wouldn’t explain that this public letter printed in a newspaper for mass consumption (a reply to a public letter from Horace Greeley) was an example of Lincoln’s public relations to sway the northern public to support an end to slavery as an important tool to end the southern rebellion that aimed to uphold slavery. At the time he wrote this letter, Lincoln had already written the Emancipation Proclamation and was simply waiting to release it publicly. He had absolutely no intention at that time of ending the war with slavery intact. Instead, he knew he needed to present ending slavery as an important wartime measure because the majority of Unionists started the war as anti-abolition. See the whole letter which makes what I’m explaining clear: https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/...

I will end by saying that I listened to this with my husband, who was a History major but did not pursue history in graduate school as I did, and he both appreciated the times when I paused the book and explained missing information like the examples above, and also thought that the book contained a lot more information that was new to him than I did and enjoyed it more than I did. So if you are interested in history and don’t have a PhD, you will likely feel more like him in your high enjoyment of this often well-written book.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 offers an engaging and expansive perspective on the U.S. Civil War, not only focusing on the conflict itself but also exploring the ways in which neighboring nations—such as Canada and Mexico—and even Europe were involved or impacted by the war. For me, one of the most eye-opening aspects of the book was the examination of the political landscapes in Canada and Mexico, which was entirely new territory.

While I was initially seeking a clear retelling of the U.S. Civil War itself, I found that this book provided far more: it offers a nuanced understanding of the war's origins, its course, and its aftermath. What impressed me most was how it tackled the key historical factors that led to the war, how it was fought, and its long-term consequences, all without falling into the traps of mythologizing or embracing "Lost Cause" narratives.

The author strikes a commendable balance by presenting perspectives from both sides of the conflict, allowing for a more complete and fair account of events. In my view, this makes the book not just a retelling of history, but a comprehensive and insightful analysis. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience, and I believe this book is an excellent resource for anyone looking to understand the full scope of the Civil War in a broader continental context.

[Tim Schillinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pros
- Presents a well-crafted narrative of the social upheavals across the Americas from 1845 to 1870, capturing both major historical events and on-the-ground perspectives with real emotional weight
- Expands the lens beyond the United States to include Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada, weaving regional histories together in a compelling way that’s often overshadowed by a U.S.-centric focus on the Civil War
- Feels balanced and grounded in the realities of the era, avoiding simplistic vilification or glorification of either the North or the South, while still delivering deserved criticism of the South

Cons
- At times comes dangerously close to the historian’s cardinal sin of presenting “one damned thing after another,” without sufficiently exploring the deeper mechanics of the period, especially how these conditions emerged and how everyday life actually differed before, during, and after these upheavals

Summary
This book offers an ambitious, wide-ranging account of mid-19th-century upheaval across the Americas, successfully situating U.S. history within a broader hemispheric context. Its narrative strength and emotional grounding make the era feel vivid and interconnected. However, the focus on events occasionally comes at the expense of deeper analysis, leaving some of the underlying forces and lived experiences only lightly explored.

[Mike Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 5 in Taylor's "continental history" focuses on the critical years when the dispute around slavery came to a head, resulting in the Civil War, perhaps the most critical years in American history. But the scope of Taylor's work is much wider for he also covers events in Mexico and Canada; these were equally critical years for our neighbors. Taylors shows how the stories of all three nations are intertwined, although given the USA's power, hers is the dominant story.
With his wider perspective, Taylor gives much space to events that are usually just mentioned in passing, e.g. filibustering, Confederate ex=pats in Mexico, the runaway slave experience in Canada and Mexico.
If the reader is looking for a sanitized version of our history, he will not find it here - the racism and ugly violence of the era is on full display, reminding the reader that the Civil War was not just a contest between armies but a much more personal and brutal tale of guerilla terrorism and murder.
I'm sure I will read more of this outstanding series.

[Chuck Hemesath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book depicting the history of the Americas during the mid 1850's. While the US struggled with political wars as well as the inevitable civil war, Mexico struggled to fight off Spain and France with their quest for expanding their territory into Mexico. While it is well known what happened in the US post civil war after Lincoln's assassination, the story of Benito Juarez's struggle to regain control of Mexico is less told and was interesting to read in this book. During this same time period, Canada, while not in the midst of delineated civil war, was dealing with their own struggles for self identity as a sovereign nation as well as compete with the US in it's expansion West, all while expecting invasions by the US to claim Western territories. Overall a great history read! Highly recommended.

[David Mc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a complicated book for me to review; as there were parts of it that fully captured my own interest in history, while other sections left me dry. In this regard, as a lifelong Civil War buff, I felt that Taylor did a magnificent job of capturing the conflict from beginning out end. Indeed, he introduced an amazing number of facts and details, as well as focusing his writing on a wide range of both famous and obscure people caught up in the conflict. Even so, I felt that Taylor spent far too much time on Mexico and Canada during this time period. At the same time, while I realize that this point has received gushing accolades from other reviewers, I would have enjoyed the book better if Taylor had kept a stronger focus on the Civil War.