When the United States emerged as a world power in the years before the Civil War; the men who presided over the nation’s triumphant territorial and economic expansion were largely southern slaveholders. As presidents; cabinet officers; and diplomats; slaveholding leaders controlled the main levers of foreign policy inside an increasingly powerful American state. This Vast Southern Empire explores the international vision and strategic operations of these southerners at the commanding heights of American politics.For proslavery leaders like John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis; the nineteenth-century world was torn between two hostile forces: a rising movement against bondage; and an Atlantic plantation system that was larger and more productive than ever before. In this great struggle; southern statesmen saw the United States as slavery’s most powerful champion. Overcoming traditional qualms about a strong central government; slaveholding leaders harnessed the power of the state to defend slavery abroad. During the antebellum years; they worked energetically to modernize the U.S. military; while steering American diplomacy to protect slavery in Brazil; Cuba; and the Republic of Texas.As Matthew Karp demonstrates; these leaders were nationalists; not separatists. Their “vast southern empire†was not an independent South but the entire United States; and only the election of Abraham Lincoln broke their grip on national power. Fortified by years at the helm of U.S. foreign affairs; slaveholding elites formed their own Confederacy―not only as a desperate effort to preserve their property but as a confident bid to shape the future of the Atlantic world.
#801004 in Books 2016-06-06Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 1.30 x 6.40l; .0 #File Name: 0674545060424 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Solid research; but hindered by poor organization by the authorBy Ryan FlynnThe author attempts to tackle that multi-front issue of poverty that was a defining issue of the 1960s and places it in the more digestible context of one region of the greater New York metropolitan area known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. At the same time; he also undercuts his research by having no real order for how he presents this research; with the narrative jumping around between the 1930s and 1970s; bringing in multiple organizations and actors many times over without properly introducing them to the audience.I wanted to like this book. Again; there is a lot of research that was done; and it had all the potential to be a transformative historical account for how the War on Poverty impacted a community; but due to the author's writing approach a lot of this potential falls away quickly. To a historian or policymaker; this is a good book to provide some additional context for your work. To the everyday person who wants to learn more; this is completely inaccessible.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Three StarsBy robert vitaglioneCould have used better research. No mention of John Powis part in this battle2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Well meaning. Dreary. Filled with words of today ...By preppyWell meaning. Dreary. Filled with words of today such as "urgent." The author tries to strike a balance between sympathy for activists and a more academic analysis but ultimately he loses it; and accomplishes neither objective. The definitive word for this book is not "urgent" but rather "compromised."
