Shot Glass of History

Keri Leigh Merritt’s work, Masterless Men, is a fascinating and long overdue examination of the difficult relationship between Southern slavery and poor whites in the Antebellum period. While it is common to focus solely on the effects that slavery had on the enslaved blacks, Merritt discusses in great depth and detail how the institution affected the supposed free whites living on its edges. Specifically, one of the important topics that she brings up in her book is the manner in which the planter class attempted to prevent the blending of race and class in Southern slavery, and the consequences of...

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The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies BY ALAN TAYLOR VINTAGE BOOKS, 640 PAGES, $14.61 - Historians are fond of complicating popular historical narratives, but few do so as enjoyably as Alan Taylor in his 2010 book, The Civil War of 1812. Rather than focusing on the War of 1812 as a national conflict between the U.S. and Britain, Taylor’s work reexamines it as a war fought around fluid and ill-defined borderlands, often to the confusion and protest of the inhabitants who found themselves on both sides of an arbitrary boundary between empire...

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American Empire: A Global History BY A.G. HOPKINS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 960 PAGES, $21.49 - The Cold War is popularly portrayed as a stand off between Soviet style Communism and Western Democracy. Most of the world, however, experienced it as an openly violent confrontation between European imperial powers and Communist-backed colonial nationalists. Indeed, as A.G. Hopkins recounts in American Empire: A Global History, Europe did not give up imperialism in the 19th century; in fact it did not end direct imperial control until the 1960s, when it had become absolutely infeasible to retain its colonies. This was especially true for Britain...

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The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire BY STEPHEN KINZER ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN, 336 PAGES, $9.89 – By the end of the 19th century, America’s borders had spread across the continent from shore to shore. However the American victory in 1898 against the Spanish Empire forced the nation to decide whether it would join the imperial nations of Europe and take possession of overseas colonies. Republicans under the presidency of William McKinley jumped at the opportunity, while a passionate, anti-imperialist movement floundered as the U.S. army triumphantly took possession of the Philippines. Author Stephen Kinzer in...

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This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy BY MATTHEW KARP HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 368 PAGES, $26.95 - The Antebellum South has traditionally been portrayed as regressive and sectional, defensively focused on preserving slavery in the southern states in opposition to federal expansion. However, as historian Matthew Karp describes in his recent book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, it was southern slaveholders that led the way in attempting to establish a strong, national U.S. military. In fact, throughout most of the Antebellum era, southerners made up the vast majority...

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Alexander H. Stephens, Diary entry, (June 5, 1865): Wonder and surprise have been expressed in a number of papers at the suddenness and completeness of the collapse of the Confederate Cause, etc. This wonder and surprise proceed from lack of accurate knowledge of public sentiment in the South. Resistance to the last extremity, it is said, was expected, and yet, more than 100,000 men-in-arms yielded the contest, abandoned the conflict, quit the field, surrendered on parole and went home. The facts are these as I understand them: No people on earth were ever more united, earnest, resolved to resist to the last extremity, than the Southern people at the outbreak of...

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Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth BY HOLGER HOOCK BROADWAY BOOKS, 576 PAGES, $13.89 - It was a deceptively lovely Autumn day in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, but the residents desperately trying to evacuate had little time to appreciate it’s beauty. At 9:40 AM Captain Henry Mowat, commander of the Royal naval squadron anchored offshore, ordered his vessels to fire upon the defenseless town, raining down what one eyewitness described in awe as “a shower of cannon-balls, carcasses, bombs, live shells, grape-shot, and even bullets from small-arms” (Hoock, Scars of Independence, 86). The bombing targeted the most compact portions...

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Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth BY HOLGER HOOCK BROADWAY BOOKS, 576 PAGES, $13.89 - While the American Revolution was not necessarily a religious war, adherents to particular religious denominations often fell more predominantly on one side of the conflict versus the other. Religion had been a key player in the violent civil wars that had just recently wracked Britain, and in the 18th century American colonialists were well aware of the religious tensions that they had inherited. Nowhere was this more evident than in Patriot treatment of High Church Anglicans. In his book, Scars of Independence, Holger Hoock recounts...

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When the delegates met at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, they had been assembled by Congress and the states with the task to “correct and enlarge” the Articles of Confederation. Most people agreed that flaws in the Articles had caused tension between the states and civil unrest within them, and it was necessary to amend them. The state delegates met behind closed doors, and their discussions were not made public at the time, allowing them to freely plan without fear of general censure. And while they had been tasked with specific instructions from their governments, several of the leading delegates...

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A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico BY AMY S. GREENBERG VINTAGE, 370 PAGES, $8.88 - Few of America’s foreign wars have been as controversial in their own time as the U.S.-Mexican War. The conflict shattered the American narrative that their foreign policy was different from the aggressive European wars waged for territorial expansion. Up until this time American battles fought against native tribes and Barbary pirates had been self-described as purely defensive. The war with Mexico, however, was America’s first aggressive conflict against another independent republic. It was loudly denounced in America from the very...

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Blending Class and Race in Southern Slavery Jun 29, 2019

1812 – War Without Borders May 10, 2019

Cold War Colonialism May 6, 2019

American Conquest of the Philippines on Trial Nov 10, 2018

U.S. Military Expansion Under the Empire of Slavery Sep 15, 2018

Alexander H. Stephens Quote on Slavery and Secession Aug 3, 2018

British Terror Bombing and the Road to American Independence Jul 21, 2018

Patriots vs. Anglicans in Revolutionary America Jul 21, 2018

The Constitutional Coup Jul 21, 2018

President Polk and the U.S.-Mexican War Jul 21, 2018