Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

The impact of the American Civil War extended well beyond the confines of the Union and Confederacy—reaching countries in Europe and the Atlantic World. Historian Don H. Doyle’s The Cause of All Nations explores the international nature of this conflict, which is often understood through the binary of North vs. South, Union vs. Confederacy. But alas, it is not that simple. Several countries were invested in the war because they felt that the Union’s cause for liberty, freedom and the preservation of democracy was the cause of all nations. Doyle argues that this interest was due, in large part, to public diplomacy, which for the first time called for “deliberate, sustained, state-sponsored programs aimed at influencing the public mind abroad.”[1] By analyzing the media and public portrayal of the North and the South abroad, Doyle illustrates why the American Civil War mattered greatly to the wider world.

From the get-go it was clear that both the North and the South were making a conscious effort to distance themselves from slavery as a central cause of the war. The North was particularly ambivalent about its motivation for waging war, stating simply that the goal was to preserve the Union from unconstitutional secession. The South emphasized “its desire for national self-determination and free trade—not slavery—as the motive for secession.”[2]  Both sides were failing to sufficiently express why they were fighting (or perhaps their explanations were unconvincing) and this was problematic because foreign politicians, journalists and intellectuals had no problem filling the gaps, controlling the narrative abroad and drawing their own conclusions about the war.

While the war was being waged on battlefields thousands of miles away, a war of words was being waged in Europe. Foreign journalists in England, Spain, France and Germany (among others) developed varying perceptions about the American conflict. On the one hand, monarchists noted that republican “experiments” had failed in Europe and there was doubt that a government without a monarchy and church could withstand the test of time.[3] British journalists framed the war “as a contest between America’s troubled democracy and the British monarchy it had forsaken in 1776.”[4] It seemed that the elites were waiting smugly for the United States to fail like so many others had previously. On the other hand, writers such as Agénor de Gasparin and Édouard Laboulaye, looked beyond what American politicians claimed was the root of the conflict and explained the war as one for equality, liberty and the abolition of slavery.

Publicity on the war transformed as Union diplomats and Confederate diplomats fed information to the press and went in and out of favor with certain foreign governments. The Confederacy, for example, tried to appeal to Napoleon III of France by supporting its invasion of Mexico but France was not interested in igniting tensions with Great Britain and other European countries who were attempting to remain neutral. The transformation was also swayed as the Union and Confederacy became more forthright in their political intentions. The more clear it became that the Union wanted to preserve democracy and rid the country of slavery, the more popular its cause became abroad.

The Cause of All Nations is a part of historiography’s transnational turn—illuminating facets of the American Civil War that have previously been neglected or overshadowed. Michael Woods Civil War literature review acknowledges that internationalism is not necessarily “new” since prior studies have broadened the lens to Mexico and the Atlantic World as regions affected by the American conflict. However, The Cause of All Nations is set apart by expanding the influence of the war to European governments and commoners alike. Doyle describes how “recruitment posters, broadsides, and speeches at rallies employed an array of languages, often mixing several, and made use of universally recognized iconography to call on immigrant soldiers to fight for their adopted country.”[5]  It becomes increasingly evident that the conflict was one that permeated beyond the boundaries of the United States, North and South America.

Doyle’s monograph is beautifully written, engaging and well researched. Although most of the characters are elite politicians directly involved in public diplomacy, there is an underlying sense that the foreign commoner has his/her own history begging to be told.