Books > History > European history
|
Buy Now
Jefferson Davis, Napoleonic France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology, 1815-1870 (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,420
Discovery Miles 14 200
|
|
Jefferson Davis, Napoleonic France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology, 1815-1870 (Hardcover)
Series: Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
In this highly original study of Confederate ideology and politics,
Jeffrey Zvengrowski suggests that Confederate president Jefferson
Davis and his supporters saw Bonapartist France as a model for the
Confederate States of America. They viewed themselves as struggling
not so much for the preservation of slavery but for antebellum
Democratic ideals of equality and white supremacy. The faction
dominated the Confederate government and deemed Republicans a
coalition controlled by pro-British abolitionists championing
inequality among whites. Like Napoleon I and Napoleon III,
pro-Davis Confederates desired to build an industrial nation-state
capable of waging Napoleonic-style warfare with large conscripted
armies. States' rights, they believed, should not preclude the
national government from exercising power. Anglophile anti-Davis
Confederates, in contrast, advocated inequality among whites,
favoured radical states' rights, and supported
slavery-in-the-abstract theories that were dismissive of white
supremacy. Having opposed pro-Davis Democrats before the war, they
preferred decentralised guerrilla warfare to Napoleonic campaigns
and hoped for support from Britain. The Confederacy, they avowed,
would willingly become a de facto British agricultural colony upon
achieving independence. Pro-Davis Confederates, wanted the
Confederacy to become an ally of France and protector of
sympathetic northern states. Zvengrowski traces the origins of the
pro-Davis Confederate ideology to Jeffersonian Democrats and their
faction of War Hawks, who lost power on the national level in the
1820s but regained it during Davis' term as secretary of war. Davis
used this position to cultivate friendly relations with France and
later warned northerners that the South would secede if Republicans
captured the White House. When Lincoln won the 1860 election, Davis
endorsed secession. The ideological heirs of the pro-British
faction soon came to loathe Davis for antagonizing Britain and for
offering to accept gradual emancipation in exchange for direct
assistance from French soldiers in Mexico. Zvengrowski's important
new interpretation of Confederate ideology situates the Civil War
in a global context of imperial competition. It also shows how
anti-Davis ex-Confederates came to dominate the postwar South and
obscure the true nature of Confederate ideology. Furthermore, it
updates the biographies of familiar characters: John C. Calhoun,
who befriended Bonapartist officers; Davis, who was as much a
Francophile as his namesake, Thomas Jefferson; and Robert E. Lee,
who as West Point's superintendent mentored a grand-nephew of
Napoleon I.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.