This highly original work explores a previously unknown financial conspiracy at the start of the American Civil War. The book explains the reasons for the puzzling intensity of Missouri’s guerrilla conflict; and for the state’s anomalous experience in Reconstruction. In the broader history of the war; the book reveals for the first time the nature of military mobilization in the antebellum United States.
#1413600 in Books 2008-12-31Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 1.45 x 6.52 x 9.28l; 1.79 #File Name: 0300125828408 pages
Review
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Excellent account of European encounters with the wider worldBy DiatonicThis is a fine book; by a reknown historian of Cambridge University. His account of Europe's first encounters with the wider world is extremely well done and distinguished by its good sense. (He eschews the nonsense that is fashionable in Portugal about "secret voyages"; etc.). His wide and deep knowledge of the sources is clear throughout. No better introduction to the topic could be had.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy FrancescoExcellent2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Very well-written; very informativeBy P.H.Along with "1491;" this is one of the very best books written about European understandings of the New World before; during; and immediately after its discovery. Abulafia's prose style is vaguely scholarly but still very accessible; there are occasional questionable digressions and the book could have perhaps been a bit shorter (I'm not sure that the reader needs to spend the first 100 pages of the book being led through the minutiae of the century-long conquest of the Canary Islands). The most interesting parts of the book are where Abulafia examines the legal/theological/philosophical implications of the discovery of a "new" type of human being that Europeans could not; at first; figure out how to categorize.Overall; 4.5/5; a very impressive work.
