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John Majewski, Marc Egnal. Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War. New York: Hill and Wang. 2009. Pp. xii, 416. $30.00, The American Historical Review, Volume 115, Issue 2, April 2010, Pages 545–546, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.115.2.545
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In this book Marc Egnal sets forth an economic interpretation of the U.S. Civil War. His study, however, is hardly the type of work scholars will find in the Journal of Economic History or other venues for quantitative research. Egnal instead has written a long, sweeping narrative that focuses on the interaction of economic and political change. He weaves stories of particular individuals (especially important politicians) into the story, resulting in a clearly written, fast-moving account of economic development and the coming of the Civil War.
The bulk of the book is devoted to explaining the process of economic change, the rise of the Republican Party, and the secession crisis. In Egnal's narrative, economic concerns primarily (but by no means exclusively) motivated political actors. The Republican Party, for example, had clear antislavery roots, but Egnal maintains that the party's economic agenda of free western land, national internal improvements, and high protective tariffs “was more important in securing a broad base of support and in setting the future course of the party” (p. 227). Many southerners, fearing that the North's modernizing agenda would mean the end of slavery, supported secession after Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election. In Egnal's account, “Secession was a rational act by a group that clearly perceived its long-term self-interest” (p. 263).
