William A. Link (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813056418
- eISBN:
- 9780813058221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056418.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
United States Reconstruction across the Americas explores how emancipation, nationhood and nationalism, and the spread of market capitalism—all central to United States Reconstruction—were interwoven ...
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United States Reconstruction across the Americas explores how emancipation, nationhood and nationalism, and the spread of market capitalism—all central to United States Reconstruction—were interwoven with patterns of post–Civil War global, political, social, and economic developments. The chapters answer these questions: How can an internationalization of US Reconstruction—through a consideration of national history as part of a process involving several state actors—enhance our understanding of this period? How did the American Civil War reshape the US’s relationship to the world, both regionally and internationally? And in what respects did international developments affect the US South’s transition from a slave to a free society?Less
United States Reconstruction across the Americas explores how emancipation, nationhood and nationalism, and the spread of market capitalism—all central to United States Reconstruction—were interwoven with patterns of post–Civil War global, political, social, and economic developments. The chapters answer these questions: How can an internationalization of US Reconstruction—through a consideration of national history as part of a process involving several state actors—enhance our understanding of this period? How did the American Civil War reshape the US’s relationship to the world, both regionally and internationally? And in what respects did international developments affect the US South’s transition from a slave to a free society?
Marc Mulholland
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199653577
- eISBN:
- 9780191744594
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199653577.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Ideas
The post-revolution state emerged strengthened, and the Crimean War indicated that war as a means to state aggrandisement was very much back in the repertoire of governmental action. Louis Napoleon's ...
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The post-revolution state emerged strengthened, and the Crimean War indicated that war as a means to state aggrandisement was very much back in the repertoire of governmental action. Louis Napoleon's Imperial France led the way. Britain was an impressive imperial, commercial, and liberal power; but constraints on its executive were beginning to tell on its international room for manoeuvre. The race-question and civil war made the USA less than an altogether enticing model. Austrian neo-absolutism suffered from its lack of constitutionalism, and after being humbled in international relations turned to a parliamentary settlement of sorts (the 1867 Ausgleich). Piedmont, led by Count Cavour, combined constitutionalism, commercialism, war-making, and international politicking to good effect in its drive to unite Italy under its aegis.Less
The post-revolution state emerged strengthened, and the Crimean War indicated that war as a means to state aggrandisement was very much back in the repertoire of governmental action. Louis Napoleon's Imperial France led the way. Britain was an impressive imperial, commercial, and liberal power; but constraints on its executive were beginning to tell on its international room for manoeuvre. The race-question and civil war made the USA less than an altogether enticing model. Austrian neo-absolutism suffered from its lack of constitutionalism, and after being humbled in international relations turned to a parliamentary settlement of sorts (the 1867 Ausgleich). Piedmont, led by Count Cavour, combined constitutionalism, commercialism, war-making, and international politicking to good effect in its drive to unite Italy under its aegis.
Mark A. Lause
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036552
- eISBN:
- 9780252093593
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036552.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that ...
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This history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for Freemasonry in the United States, the book analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European Revolutions of 1848. The book traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, including the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. It shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions and may have played a part in key events such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860–1861.Less
This history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for Freemasonry in the United States, the book analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European Revolutions of 1848. The book traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, including the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. It shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions and may have played a part in key events such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860–1861.
Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813044378
- eISBN:
- 9780813046471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044378.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter adopts a transnational perspective to reappraise the enormous literature on U.S. Emancipation and Reconstruction and exposes a surprisingly strong residual commitment to ideas of ...
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This chapter adopts a transnational perspective to reappraise the enormous literature on U.S. Emancipation and Reconstruction and exposes a surprisingly strong residual commitment to ideas of southern exceptionalism. Looking to the Atlantic and other worlds to find points of comparison, the chapter challenges some of the dominant paradigms of nineteenth century US historiography to re-evaluate what, if anything, was really distinctive about the southern experiences of Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction.Less
This chapter adopts a transnational perspective to reappraise the enormous literature on U.S. Emancipation and Reconstruction and exposes a surprisingly strong residual commitment to ideas of southern exceptionalism. Looking to the Atlantic and other worlds to find points of comparison, the chapter challenges some of the dominant paradigms of nineteenth century US historiography to re-evaluate what, if anything, was really distinctive about the southern experiences of Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction.
Martin Summers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190852641
- eISBN:
- 9780190060138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190852641.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, American History: 20th Century
This chapter covers Saint Elizabeths during the tenure of its first superintendent, Charles H. Nichols (1855–1877), including the impact of the Civil War on the composition of the patient population, ...
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This chapter covers Saint Elizabeths during the tenure of its first superintendent, Charles H. Nichols (1855–1877), including the impact of the Civil War on the composition of the patient population, the general operation of the hospital, and the overall treatment of African American patients. Although blacks were among the soldiers, sailors, and federal prisoners admitted to the hospital in its early years, the majority of African American patients were indigent civilian residents of the District. The Civil War led to emancipation in the District and the influx of contrabands—black refugees and fugitive slaves—into the city, making it difficult for hospital officials to employ a strict residency requirement for admission. The chapter also explores the ways in which racial discrimination characterized the hospital’s therapeutic regime. It further reveals how African American patients and their families sought to shape their own experiences in the hospital.Less
This chapter covers Saint Elizabeths during the tenure of its first superintendent, Charles H. Nichols (1855–1877), including the impact of the Civil War on the composition of the patient population, the general operation of the hospital, and the overall treatment of African American patients. Although blacks were among the soldiers, sailors, and federal prisoners admitted to the hospital in its early years, the majority of African American patients were indigent civilian residents of the District. The Civil War led to emancipation in the District and the influx of contrabands—black refugees and fugitive slaves—into the city, making it difficult for hospital officials to employ a strict residency requirement for admission. The chapter also explores the ways in which racial discrimination characterized the hospital’s therapeutic regime. It further reveals how African American patients and their families sought to shape their own experiences in the hospital.
Neil C. Renic
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198851462
- eISBN:
- 9780191886065
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198851462.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the ...
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This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the sharpshooting of the First World War. The asymmetric potential of this technology will be detailed, as well as the criticism this advantage attracted. The chapter will then clarify that in contrast to its tension with the warrior ethos, the asymmetry-challenge of sniping did not impact the Just War Tradition to a meaningful degree. The chapter concludes by examining the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of sniping, focusing on the increasingly significant role of combat responsibility in determinations of ethically legitimate violence.Less
This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the sharpshooting of the First World War. The asymmetric potential of this technology will be detailed, as well as the criticism this advantage attracted. The chapter will then clarify that in contrast to its tension with the warrior ethos, the asymmetry-challenge of sniping did not impact the Just War Tradition to a meaningful degree. The chapter concludes by examining the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of sniping, focusing on the increasingly significant role of combat responsibility in determinations of ethically legitimate violence.
Adam I. P. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469633893
- eISBN:
- 9781469633909
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469633893.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
In this engaging and nuanced political history of Northern communities in the Civil War era, Adam I. P. Smith offers a new interpretation of the familiar story of the path to war and ultimate ...
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In this engaging and nuanced political history of Northern communities in the Civil War era, Adam I. P. Smith offers a new interpretation of the familiar story of the path to war and ultimate victory. Smith looks beyond the political divisions between abolitionist Republicans and Copperhead Democrats to consider the everyday conservatism that characterized the majority of Northern voters. A sense of ongoing crisis in these Northern states created anxiety and instability, which manifested in a range of social and political tensions in individual communities. In the face of such realities, Smith argues that a conservative impulse was more than just a historical or nostalgic tendency; it was fundamental to charting a path to the future. At stake for Northerners was their conception of the Union as the vanguard in a global struggle between democracy and despotism, and their ability to navigate their freedoms through the stormy waters of modernity. As a result, the language of conservatism was peculiarly, and revealingly, prominent in Northern politics during these years. The story this book tells is of conservative people coming, in the end, to accept radical change.Less
In this engaging and nuanced political history of Northern communities in the Civil War era, Adam I. P. Smith offers a new interpretation of the familiar story of the path to war and ultimate victory. Smith looks beyond the political divisions between abolitionist Republicans and Copperhead Democrats to consider the everyday conservatism that characterized the majority of Northern voters. A sense of ongoing crisis in these Northern states created anxiety and instability, which manifested in a range of social and political tensions in individual communities. In the face of such realities, Smith argues that a conservative impulse was more than just a historical or nostalgic tendency; it was fundamental to charting a path to the future. At stake for Northerners was their conception of the Union as the vanguard in a global struggle between democracy and despotism, and their ability to navigate their freedoms through the stormy waters of modernity. As a result, the language of conservatism was peculiarly, and revealingly, prominent in Northern politics during these years. The story this book tells is of conservative people coming, in the end, to accept radical change.
Daniel B. Rood
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190655266
- eISBN:
- 9780190655297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190655266.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The transnational bloc of masters and experts studied in this book took up arms to perpetuate the Greater Caribbean racial-technological networks they had built throughout the 1840s and 1850s, thus ...
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The transnational bloc of masters and experts studied in this book took up arms to perpetuate the Greater Caribbean racial-technological networks they had built throughout the 1840s and 1850s, thus committing themselves to a particular vision for the future of racial capitalism. Although they lost in their struggle to perpetuate chattel slavery, their successful reinventions of plantation capitalism and its attendant racial ideology infected the post-abolition world, limiting the imaginations of the powerful in ways that constrained post-slavery realities for freedpeople. The decades after formal abolition in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States showed how strongly rooted the idea of racialized labor as a pliant, moveable, and calculable commodity had become.Less
The transnational bloc of masters and experts studied in this book took up arms to perpetuate the Greater Caribbean racial-technological networks they had built throughout the 1840s and 1850s, thus committing themselves to a particular vision for the future of racial capitalism. Although they lost in their struggle to perpetuate chattel slavery, their successful reinventions of plantation capitalism and its attendant racial ideology infected the post-abolition world, limiting the imaginations of the powerful in ways that constrained post-slavery realities for freedpeople. The decades after formal abolition in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States showed how strongly rooted the idea of racialized labor as a pliant, moveable, and calculable commodity had become.
Christopher Hanlon
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190842529
- eISBN:
- 9780190842550
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190842529.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter examines the paintings of John Frederick Peto, whose “letter rack” depictions constitute melancholic acts of remembering transacted through the arrangement of abandoned objects. Insofar ...
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This chapter examines the paintings of John Frederick Peto, whose “letter rack” depictions constitute melancholic acts of remembering transacted through the arrangement of abandoned objects. Insofar as Peto theorizes memory through the genre of trompe l’oeil, he provokes questions concerning the extent to which recollection entails fabrication, and focused upon the insistence that such fabrication invariably turns upon sensations of loss. As Peto’s letter racks move toward subject matter relating to the Civil War, his questions come increasingly to involve embroilments of memory and memorialization, and in ways that offer an entrée into Emerson’s “Fortune of the Republic,” an essay that anticipates future acts of remembering undertaken by other generations of Americans confronted with the challenge of recalling the War with integrity.Less
This chapter examines the paintings of John Frederick Peto, whose “letter rack” depictions constitute melancholic acts of remembering transacted through the arrangement of abandoned objects. Insofar as Peto theorizes memory through the genre of trompe l’oeil, he provokes questions concerning the extent to which recollection entails fabrication, and focused upon the insistence that such fabrication invariably turns upon sensations of loss. As Peto’s letter racks move toward subject matter relating to the Civil War, his questions come increasingly to involve embroilments of memory and memorialization, and in ways that offer an entrée into Emerson’s “Fortune of the Republic,” an essay that anticipates future acts of remembering undertaken by other generations of Americans confronted with the challenge of recalling the War with integrity.
John Fabian Witt
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197509371
- eISBN:
- 9780197509401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197509371.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
Witt begins by observing that although the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is often anthologized and has long been a staple of high school curricula and the subject of music videos, ...
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Witt begins by observing that although the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is often anthologized and has long been a staple of high school curricula and the subject of music videos, television, and film, it is not typically thought of as a study in the dilemmas of humanitarian law. But, Witt argues, it is just that. The story depicts an execution for violation of the laws of war. Its author was a Union Army veteran. Moreover, the text embodies a central tension in the laws of war, one that emerged in Bierce’s time and persists today. On the one hand stands a sentimental humanitarianism that aims to minimize the human suffering of war. On the other, a righteous humanitarianism chafes at the constraints that sentimental humanitarianism places on the pursuit of justice. Witt demonstrates that Bierce’s “Owl Creek” straddles the two planks of the modern laws of war, conveying the power of both views.Less
Witt begins by observing that although the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is often anthologized and has long been a staple of high school curricula and the subject of music videos, television, and film, it is not typically thought of as a study in the dilemmas of humanitarian law. But, Witt argues, it is just that. The story depicts an execution for violation of the laws of war. Its author was a Union Army veteran. Moreover, the text embodies a central tension in the laws of war, one that emerged in Bierce’s time and persists today. On the one hand stands a sentimental humanitarianism that aims to minimize the human suffering of war. On the other, a righteous humanitarianism chafes at the constraints that sentimental humanitarianism places on the pursuit of justice. Witt demonstrates that Bierce’s “Owl Creek” straddles the two planks of the modern laws of war, conveying the power of both views.
Alison L. LaCroix, Jonathan S. Masur, Martha C. Nussbaum, and Laura Weinrib (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197509371
- eISBN:
- 9780197509401
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197509371.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
War often appears to be definitionally outside the realm of structures such as law and literature. When we speak of war, we often understand it as incapable of being rendered into rules or words. ...
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War often appears to be definitionally outside the realm of structures such as law and literature. When we speak of war, we often understand it as incapable of being rendered into rules or words. Lawyers struggle to fit the horrors of the battlefield, the torture chamber, or the makeshift hospital filled with wounded and dying civilians into the framework of legible rules and shared understandings that law assumes and demands. In the West’s centuries-long effort to construct a formal law of war, the imperative has been to acknowledge the inhumanity of war while resisting the conclusion that it need therefore be without law. Writers, in contrast, seek to find the human within war—an individual story, perhaps even a moment of comprehension. Law and literature might in this way be said to share imperialist tendencies where war is concerned: toward extending their dominion to contain what might be uncontainable. This volume on war is the sixth in the University of Chicago Law School’s Law and Literature series. The papers are intended to address the many ways in which war affects human society and the many groups of people whose lives are affected by war. Some of the papers concern the lives of soldiers; others focus on civilians living in war zones who are caught up in the conflict; still others address themselves to the home front, far from the theater of war. By collecting such diverse perspectives within one volume, we hope to examine how literature has reflected the totalizing nature of war and the ways in which it distorts law across domains.Less
War often appears to be definitionally outside the realm of structures such as law and literature. When we speak of war, we often understand it as incapable of being rendered into rules or words. Lawyers struggle to fit the horrors of the battlefield, the torture chamber, or the makeshift hospital filled with wounded and dying civilians into the framework of legible rules and shared understandings that law assumes and demands. In the West’s centuries-long effort to construct a formal law of war, the imperative has been to acknowledge the inhumanity of war while resisting the conclusion that it need therefore be without law. Writers, in contrast, seek to find the human within war—an individual story, perhaps even a moment of comprehension. Law and literature might in this way be said to share imperialist tendencies where war is concerned: toward extending their dominion to contain what might be uncontainable. This volume on war is the sixth in the University of Chicago Law School’s Law and Literature series. The papers are intended to address the many ways in which war affects human society and the many groups of people whose lives are affected by war. Some of the papers concern the lives of soldiers; others focus on civilians living in war zones who are caught up in the conflict; still others address themselves to the home front, far from the theater of war. By collecting such diverse perspectives within one volume, we hope to examine how literature has reflected the totalizing nature of war and the ways in which it distorts law across domains.
