DOC Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy by James Lee McDonough in History

Description

A major new interpretation recasts U.S. history between revolution and civil war; exposing a dramatic reversal in sympathy toward Latin American revolutions. In the early nineteenth century; the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward; imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port cities to Midwestern farms and southern plantations; an adolescent nation hailed Latin America’s independence movements as glorious tropical reprises of 1776. Even as Latin Americans were gradually ending slavery; U.S. observers remained energized by the belief that their founding ideals were triumphing over European tyranny among their “sister republics.” But as slavery became a violently divisive issue at home; goodwill toward antislavery revolutionaries waned. By the nation’s fiftieth anniversary; republican efforts abroad had become a scaffold upon which many in the United States erected an ideology of white U.S. exceptionalism that would haunt the geopolitical landscape for generations. Marshaling groundbreaking research in four languages; Caitlin Fitz defines this hugely significant; previously unacknowledged turning point in U.S. history. 8 pages of illustrations