In the latter half of the nineteenth century, three violent national conflicts rocked the Americas: The Wars of Unification in Argentina, the War of the Reform and French Intervention in Mexico, and the Civil War in the United States. The recovery efforts that followed reshaped the Western Hemisphere. In Civil Wars and Reconstructions in the Americas, Evan C. Rothera uses both transnational and comparative methodologies to highlight similarities and differences among the wars and reconstructions in the US, Mexico, and Argentina. In doing so, he uncovers a new history that stresses the degree to which cooperation and collaboration, rather than antagonism and discord, characterized the relationships among the three countries. This study serves as a unique assessment of a crucial period in the history of the Americas and speaks to the perpetual battle between visions of international partnership and isolation.
"Evan C. Rothera has cast the familiar history of the US Civil War into a new framework that encompasses Latin America. He gives readers an exciting, multifaceted view of the tumultuous decades that shook the Americas from Argentina to Mexico and the United States."
Don H. Doyle, author of The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American
"This book is a signal contribution to our understanding of the intertwined politics of the New World during a critical era of global history defined by the clash between the fragile forces of democracy and the counterrevolutionary agents of monarchy and hereditary privilege."
Patrick J. Kelly, associate professor of history, University of Texas at San Antonio
