About half of today's nation-states originated as some kind of breakaway state. The end of the Cold War witnessed a resurgence of separatist activity affecting nearly every part of the globe and stimulated a new generation of scholars to consider separatism and secession. As the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War approaches, this collection of essays allows us to view within a broader international context one of modern history's bloodiest conflicts over secession. The contributors to this volume consider a wide range of topics related to secession, separatism, and the nationalist passions that inflame such conflicts. The first section of the book examines ethical and moral dimensions of secession, while subsequent sections look at the American Civil War, conflicts in the Gulf of Mexico, European separatism, and conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The contributors to this book have no common position advocating or opposing secession in principle or in any particular case. All understand it, however, as a common feature of the modern world and as a historic phenomenon of international scope. Some contributors propose that "political divorce," as secession has come to be called, ought to be subject to rational arbitration and ethical norms, instead of being decided by force. Along with these hopes for the future, Secession as an International Phenomenon offers a somber reminder of the cost the United States paid when reason failed and war was left to resolve the issue.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—this gripping debut novel asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself. From the author of What Strange Paradise "Powerful ... as haunting a postapocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy [created] in The Road." —The New York Times Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.
The political impulse to secede - to attempt to separate from central government control - is a conspicuous feature of the post-cold war world. It is alive and growing in Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and even the United States Yet secession remains one of the least studied and least understood of all historical and political phenomena. The contributors to this volume have filled this gap with wide-ranging investigations - rooted in history, political philosophy, ethics, and economic theory - of secessionist movements in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
“Traces the history of abolition from the 1600s to the 1860s . . . a valuable addition to our understanding of the role of race and racism in America.”—Florida Courier Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor. Drawing on extensive archival research, including newly discovered letters and pamphlets, Sinha documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology and tactics of abolition. This book is a comprehensive history of the abolition movement in a transnational context. It illustrates how the abolitionist vision ultimately linked the slave’s cause to the struggle to redefine American democracy and human rights across the globe. “A full history of the men and women who truly made us free.”—Ira Berlin, The New York Times Book Review “A stunning new history of abolitionism . . . [Sinha] plugs abolitionism back into the history of anticapitalist protest.”—The Atlantic “Will deservedly take its place alongside the equally magisterial works of Ira Berlin on slavery and Eric Foner on the Reconstruction Era.”—The Wall Street Journal “A powerfully unfamiliar look at the struggle to end slavery in the United States . . . as multifaceted as the movement it chronicles.”—The Boston Globe
The political impulse to secede - to attempt to separate from central government control - is a conspicuous feature of the post-cold war world. It is alive and growing in Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and even the United States Yet secession remains one of the least studied and least understood of all historical and political phenomena. The contributors to this volume have filled this gap with wide-ranging investigations - rooted in history, political philosophy, ethics, and economic theory - of secessionist movements in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
This compelling, highly readable book focuses on the men who shaped the events that led to secession and the Civil War. Secessionists tore at the bonds that bound Americans to one another and their government as they maligned Northerners and found sinister intent in federal policy. But equally as adamant on the opposite side were the determined abolitionists and others in the North who sought to hold the Union together. Tariffs, the loss of political power, and the antislavery movement were all taking their toll on the South, but it took specific individuals and groups to bring to action the causes they believed in and thus to alter the course of history. The Men of Secession and Civil War, 1859-1861 traces the period from John Brown's 1859 Harper's Ferry raid to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and the subse-quent secession of the Upper South states in April 1861. The cast of characters in this book includes abolitionists John Brown and Salmon P. Chase; President Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas; Andrew Johnson, whom Lincoln named his vice president in 1864; secessionists Jefferson Davis, Roger Taney, and Barnwell Rhett; John Breckenridge, the 1860 presidential nominee of the Southern Democratic Party; and Tennessee Senator John Bell. The Men of Secession and Civil War is a useful volume for Civil War courses.
If you think that you know what happen with the economic political chaos of the Century 21th, this new book of Julio Camino is certainly not for you. But if, on the contrary, you have doubts, questions and concerns, rather than elaborated opinions, or if you are not very sure about them, this book is for you. Especially if you want to learn about what is going on in the USA and some parts of the world: what is happening and why? Generally, in the United States, upon hearing the word "secession", most people think of Abraham Lincoln, the "deep South" and the Civil War. But there are currently other secessionist movements gaining strength in the U.S., and not only in the South, but in the entire territory, because the same "Big Government" federal emerged from the War of Secession, has gone out of control, causing many States huge frustration and discontent. Along these pages you will find something that you need, even if you are not very conscious of what is missing: information, good information from not well-known but truthful and liable authors.
The political impulse to secede -- to attempt to separate from central government control -- is a conspicuous feature of the post-cold war world. It is alive and growing in Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and even the United States Yet secession remains one of the least studied and least understood of all historical and political phenomena. The contributors to this volume have filled this gap with wide-ranging investigations -- rooted in history, political philosophy, ethics, and economic theory -- of secessionist movements in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Is secessionism extremist, a dangerous rebellion that threatens the democratic process? Gordon and his contributors think otherwise. They believe that the secessionist impulse is a vital part of the classical liberal tradition, one that emerges when national governments become too big and too ambitious. Unlike revolution, secession seeks only separation from rule, preferably through non-violent means. It is based on the moral idea, articulated by Ludwig von Mises in 1919, that "no people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want. The authors cite the famed 1861 attempt to create a confederacy of Southern states as legal, right, and a justifiable response to Northern political imperialism. They note that this was not the first American secession attempt -- the New England states tried to form their own confederacy during the War of 1812. This evidence, they argue, begs a reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution along secessionist lines. Further they believe that the threat of secession should be revived as a bulwark against government encroachmenton individual liberty and private property rights, a guarantor of international free trade, and a protection against attempts to curb the freedom of association. These straightforward, pellucid arguments include essays by Donald Livingston, Murray N. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Thomas DiLorenzo, and Bruce Benson, among others. If overgrown nations continue to decompose, as they have for the last decade, these authors believe it is essential that secession be taken seriously, and fully understood. Secession, State, and Liberty makes a vital contribution toward that end. This stimulating, thought-provoking collection is necessary reading for intellectual historians and political scientists.
In the inflammatory rhetoric of state-appointed commissioners dispatched to preach the secessionist cause, Charles Dew finds what he maintains are the true causes of the Civil War and its legacy of racism in contemporary America.