Books by John Ashworth

This volume brings together one of the most provocative debates among historians in recent years. The centre of controversy is the emergence of the anti-slavery movement in the United States and Britain and the relation of capitalism to the development.

The Republic in Crisis, 1848-1861 analyses the political climate in the years leading up to the American Civil War, offering for students and general readers a clear, chronological account of the sectional conflict and the beginning of the Civil War. Emerging from the tumultuous political events of the 1840s and 1850s, the Civil War was caused by the maturing of the North and South's separate, distinctive forms of social organisation and their resulting ideologies. John Ashworth emphasises factors often overlooked in explanations of the war, including the resistance of slaves in the South and the growth of wage labour in the North. Ashworth acquaints readers with modern writings on the period, providing a new interpretation of the American Civil War's causes.

This is a paperback edition of a book originally published in hard covers by the Royal Historical Society.