The Fate of Their Country

At H-Net, a historian I have not heard of, Graham H. Peck, has written an excellent review of Michael Holt's book The Fate of Their Country. Professor Peck's conclusion is exactly correct: "[T]he contemporary rival schools of Civil War causation might not be as far apart as is sometimes thought. Just as Holt acknowledges, to a degree, the powerful interplay between politicians and public attitudes toward slavery, historians who emphasize the slavery issue must explain how contingent factors, including political ones, influenced the coming of the war."

Both the review and the book are highly recommended.