Old England, New England, and the Civil War
How a Clash of Cultures Ignited a Global Campaign for Racial Equality and Civil Rights
Format:Paperback
Publisher:State University of New York Press
Published:2nd Nov '25
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£101.50(9798855802122)
The first study to document how the Civil War brought about a bitter cultural and political conflict between Great Britain and the United States, a conflict that ignited a global struggle for racial equality and human rights.
This study tells for the first time the story of a bitter cultural and political conflict that arose between the leading writers and intellectuals of Great Britain and the United States during the Civil War. The latter were virtually all New Englanders. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a central figure. The British side included such notables as Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and John Ruskin. The conflict was focused on the viability of liberal democracy and the notion that "all men are created equal." The question was: What type of social, political, and cultural paradigm was best suited to ensure the advancement of civilization––one in which all have equal rights, regardless of race or class, or one where a small number of privileged white elites exercise a controlling power? The New Englanders embraced the former and the British the latter. The result was a bitter alienation that ignited a global campaign for racial equality and universal human rights.
"…Old England, New England, and the Civil War provides a valuable and thought-provoking study of two influential intellectual communities and the high-stakes debates they waged over human rights and the future of democracy. It enriches our understanding of transcendentalism, of British responses to the Civil War, and of the global reverberations of America's reckoning with slavery and equality." — Journal of Southern History
"As with all his work, Gougeon writes here with great clarity and verve. Historical details yield larger insights, such as the psychological effects on the British upon learning of the first conflict between the iron ships. The book covers a lot of ground yet has the pace and engagement of a novel. Despite its having been told so many times and in so many ways, Gougeon's description of the fall and burial of Robert Gould Shaw still brings chills. This is a compelling, complex, and vivid account of a time when at least parts of America dreamt of a greater common good and was willing to fight and sacrifice for it." — South Atlantic Review
"The strength of Gougeon's scholarship remains, as it has been for more than a half-century, an immersion in crucial primary sources … Gougeon's research in both published and archival correspondence illuminates the vast network of transatlantic Victorian friendships." — Emerson Society Papers
"Old England, New England, and the Civil War details a story never told with such precision and accuracy: why English intellectuals, at first sympathetic to the cause of their New England counterparts, over the course of the Civil War became estranged as abolitionists began to stress the inherent dignity—and humanity—of the enslaved. Based on prodigious research in primary sources, this should be required reading for anyone interested in Anglo-American relations during the War." — Philip F. Gura, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
ISBN: 9798855802115
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 24mm
Weight: 567g
368 pages