Don Doyle (Emeritus Professor of History, University of South Carolina)

December 11, 2012

How did the Union and the Confederacy explain what they were fighting for to the rest of the world? How did foreign politicians and intellectuals interpret the War? And what role did foreigners play in the conflict? This seminar addresses these and other questions as it places the Civil War in a global perspective. Through close study of speeches by Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln and diplomatic instructions issued to overseas agents, participants discover how, to foreign observers, the War evolved from being nothing more than an American quarrel over constitutional issues to an epic battle that would determine the survival of the American republic, the future of human slavery, and the fate of the “democratic experiment” around the world.

Subjects

History / Slavery / American Civil War / World History / International Relations /