Reid, The Origins Of The American Civil War

Abstract

This is the fifteenth volume in Longman's "Origin of Modern War Series." Its author is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at King's College, London, and Resident Historian at the British Army Staff College in Camberley. Developing his thesis that wars in general, and the American Civil War specifically, are the result of a series of ironically well-intentioned acts, Reid maintains that "whatever the strength of public opinion, and electoral shifts of opinion, it is the action--the decisions taken by politicians--which determine the chain of circumstances that result in war or peace." Tragically, for America in 1861 these decisions led to the "decisive event in American history."