Legacy of Disunion: the Enduring Significance of the American Civil War.

Legacy of Disunion: The Enduring Significance of the American Civil War. Edited by Susan-Mary Grant and Peter J. Parish. Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 267. $34.95, ISBN 0-8071-2847-3.)

Books written by American scholars about European history, particularly British history, find a friendly audience in the United States, and American readers are increasingly receptive to books written about American history by British scholars. Americans and Britons share a common language and heritage, at least along the East Coast, and the history of America intertwined with that of Great Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the nineteenth century, however, that bond dissolved even as the U.S. divided, and British scholars today seem particularly interested in slavery, sectionalism, the Civil War, and the racial segregation that persisted long into the twentieth century. U.S. history as taught and researched in Britain is now disproportionately southern history. There is even an organization entitled British American Nineteenth Century Historians, and that group publishes a journal that regularly includes articles on the American South. These English scholars often study the events that led to the break between North and South, as well as the war and its consequences, and their work suggests insightful perspectives from an outsider's point of view.

Legacy of Disunion is representative of this scholarship. Editor Susan-Mary Grant is a reader in American history at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, while her coeditor Peter J. Parish (d. 2002) was the Mellon Senior Research Fellow in American history at the University of Cambridge. The affiliations of the contributors include the University of Derby, the University of Sheffield, the University of Glasgow, and King's College and University College, both in London. Into this mix of eight British representatives are added four academics from American institutions with impeccable credentials.

The idea for this book originated at a conference in London in 1997 during which the participants discussed the short- and long-term implications of the American Civil War. The scholars concluded, then and at subsequent conferences, that the "Civil War's legacy is less straightforward than it has sometimes seemed. The conviction that the war left a massive legacy has generally been much clearer than the definition of what that legacy has actually been" (p. 3). They believe that the war's legacy rotates around a "tripartite axis" consisting of the South, race relations, and the role of Abraham Lincoln. Certainly no American scholar would dispute that conclusion. The book, therefore, is divided into three parts, and the topics are examined from both American and non-American viewpoints. The editors believe that a "European perspective can, in places, shed a different light on aspects of the war's legacy that, from an American perspective, are sometimes too close for comfort" (p. 4).

Part 1, "The Myth and the Memory: The Civil War in American Memory," includes an essay by Charles Joyner about the war and southern memory. Bruce Collins looks at Confederate identity and the southern myth since the Civil War. Robert Cook examines African Americans and the Civil War centennial, while Melvyn Stokes discusses the Civil War in the movies.

Part 2, "The Leader and the Legacy: Politics, Patriotism, and the Civil War," includes a look at party politics in the North by Adam I. P. Smith and Peter Parish. Jeffrey Leigh Sedgwick examines the liberal statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, and Parish has a second essay about Lincoln and American nationhood. James M. McPherson's essay, previously published as a pamphlet, discusses Lincoln's legacy.

Part 3, "The Fruits of Victory: The Enduring Significance of the American Civil War," includes an essay by Brian Holden Reid on civil-military relations and the legacy of the war. Patricia Lucie looks at the significance of the Constitutional amendments. Susan-Mary Grant's previously published piece examines the war and American nationalism. Finally, Richard N. Current's essay, also previously published, discusses the era when the United States became a world power, between 1865 and 1914.

While the contributions of the American scholars are noteworthy, it is the essays by the non-Americans that will fascinate readers the most. Charles Joyner argues that history "studied only by insiders, or any history studied only by outsiders, is only half-studied," and this book provides an outsider's point of view (p. 18). While Americans may not agree with Joyner's statement, the essays by non-Americans certainly offer different perspectives for consideration. Some of the conclusions therein may seem obvious to Americans, but there are definitely other insights that may give the American reader pause. Without doubt, anyone interested in the legacy of the Civil War will want to see what scholars on the other side of the Atlantic think about one of the most significant events in American history.

ANNE J. BAILEY

Georgia College and State University