ADDRESSING AN ASPECT of the Civil War that has long been a source of controversy among historians; David G. Surdam offers an unconventional analysis of the Union's naval blockade. He questions common methods of evaluating the strength of the 3;500-mile siege line; disputes widely held interpretations of its impact; and explores previously unexamined aspects of the blockade as he presents a case for the effectiveness of the Union naval effort. Surdam seeks to explain the failure of the Confederacy to wage war and sustain independence despite an apparently sufficient supply of raw cotton to trade with Europe and Canada for war materiel and enough beef and corn to feed its troops. To do so he expands the traditional approach to the blockade; finding that a focus on the number of goods that slipped past Union ships overlooks two of the blockade's most important achievements: disrupting intraregional trade and denying the Confederacy badly needed revenue from the export of raw cotton and other staple products. Explicating the blockade's indirect yet devastating results; Surdam examines the degradation of railroad lines; collapse of specific internal markets; and effect on the exportation of cotton. He also explores how the blockade affected the cross-country movement of crops to hungry soldiers and civilians and how costs associated with the blockade consumed most of the higher prices that Europeans paid for Southern cotton.
#3086791 in Books 2014-04-02Original language:English #File Name: 1567442625466 pages
Review
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. From Traditionalism to PerennialismBy A ReaderThis is in effect two books in one: a history of the idea of a Perennial Philosophy; and a study of its development in the USA; with special reference to the academic scene. The first part traces the “philosophia perennis†from its reappearance at the Renaissance; through the discovery of the Orient in the Enlightenment; the German romantics; American Transcendentalists; 19th century occultism; and the Theosophical Society. While Traditionalists tend to spurn H.P. Blavatsky; Houman points out that all the French occultists; including the young René Guénon; were indebted to her movement for the publication of the traditional texts of India and the revivification of Hermetic philosophy. Houman also includes Edouard Schuré as a “proto-perennialist†whose popular work “The Great Initiates†provided the clearing-house by which Theosophical ideas were made acceptable to the Traditionalist mentality.Houman then summarizes the life and work of two sources of the Traditionalist current in the 20th century: René Guénon; who recast the Perennial Philosophy in terms appropriate for the Kali Yuga; and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy; the art-historian and authority on comparative metaphysics. Coomaraswamy surpassed Guénon in erudition and in aesthetic sensibility. Although his rejection of the modern world was no less decided than Guénon’s; he paid little attention to mystifications like Agarttha; the conspiracies of the Counter-Initiation; or the polemic against Theosophy. Instead; his emphasis was on the convergence of all symbols; rites; and religions at a metaphysical summit where all distinctions vanish.The third major Traditionalist of the early twentieth-century; Julius Evola; receives only passing mention in Houman’s book because he had virtually no influence on the Americans. European Traditionalism came to them in part through Mircea Eliade; the historian of religions who; as Houman documents; underplayed or even disguised his debt to Evola and Guénon; and far more decidedly through Frithjof Schuon.Houman’s account of Schuon’s life and work is more than twice the length of that in the standard work on the Traditionalists: Mark Sedgwick’s “Against the Modern World.†She lets the reader decide from the literary evidence whether Schuon continued; amplified; or perverted the current into which Guénon and the Sufis had introduced him. It does seem that while Guénon insisted that esotericists also follow an orthodox exoteric religion; Schuon did nothing of the kind; and whereas Guénon censured the mixing of traditions; Schuon made his own blend of Islamic; Christian; and Native American practices.The entry of esotericism; in its Traditionalist mode; into the American Academy of Religion set off debates that fill the remainder of Houman’s book. One of these in the late 1980s pitted Stephen Katz; who held all spiritual experience to be culturally conditioned; against Huston Smith as defender of its transcendence of religious differences. In 1989 Len Bowman; Sheldon Isenberg; and Tyson Anderson turned their analytic skills on various problems raised by Traditionalist claims; and James Cutsinger answered them all in comparable depth. The whole episode now has the flavor of a period piece; yet at the time issues of real importance were at stake. The first generation of Traditionalists had taken on modernism as a symptom of the Kali Yuga and an enemy to humanity. Now it was the turn of postmodernism.Houman then brings the story of the American Traditionalists; now self-styled “Perennialists;†up to the present. She gives thumbnail sketches of the second generation of scholars; sorting them into Nasrians (followers of Seyyed Hossein Nasr; including Laleh Bakhtiar; Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr; Wolfgang Smith; John Ahmed Herlihy; Joseph Lumbard; William A. Graham); Schuonians (including James Cutsinger; Patrick Laude; Mark Perry; William Chittick; Barry McDonald; Michael Oren Fitzgerald) and Coomaraswamians (Roger Lipsey; William Quinn; Rama Coomaraswamy). The few American Guénonians; too; receive their due (Samuel D. Fohr; Charles Upton; Lee Penn); as do the relevant publishers and journals; both print and online. This; together with the Bibliography; is an invaluable collection of sources; some of them very obscure. It also reveals that in the well-integrated world of Humanities and Religious Studies; every one of the Perennialists is male.Like the fictitious writer of Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters;†who showed Europeans the hidden truths about themselves; this Iranian scholar sees her subject with a clarity and detachment denied to insiders. The result is a gift of self-knowledge to Perennialists and a permanent contribution to the history of ideas.Note: The above is based on a longer review of the original French edition; in “Theosophical History;†Vol. XV; No.1 (2011).4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. A very good book!By Sandra MillerA great book; written by talented scholar S.Houman; for anyone who wants to acquire more knowledge on the philisophia perennis' history in the United States. Well documented and enjoyable to read; this book provides a rigorous analysis and a critical insight on the subject. A must-read book for anyone interested on the subject.
