[lit-ideas] Beard's The Rise of American Civilization
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 22:58:37 -0800
I checked through my library and discovered that the last book I read that
treats the Civil War with some thoroughness was Charles and Mary Beard's The
Rise of American Civilization, 1930. I read it in 2000 because it is
considered something of a classic and I encountered reference to it in some
book or review I had read. Beard was a very good writer and a clever
thinker, but he wasn't highly respected by his peers because of his
politics: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbeardC.htm
It strikes me as a bit ironic that I seem to be presenting something of a
Marxist interpretation of the Civil War and those whom I would normally
consider . . . closer to Marx than I am are arguing with me. I'm not
complaining - just finding it ironic.
To suggest that Northerners were willing to go to war to free the slaves
presents the North in a nobler light than I think justifiable. There was
the abolition movement to be sure, but it was never large enough to
influence politics in a major way. I suppose I was convinced by Beard that
economic motives were driving both the North and the South. The North had a
good thing going and didn't want to lose it. The South felt it was being
economically squeezed beyond endurance.
Lincoln was a president who was resolved to do the right thing as he saw it,
and he saw pretty clearly, no matter what.
Lawrence
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