The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America

The Cousins' Wars considers the English Civil War (1642-49), the American Revolutionary War (1775-81) and the American Civil War (1861-65) as an evolutionary sequence of events, each successive war an outgrowth of its predecessor, during which the English-speaking peoples (what Phillips terms "Anglo-America") struggled to decide whether we would be defined by the religious and political ideals that set us apart from the rest of Europe--congregationalism, freedom of conscience, parliamentary democracy, individual liberty and a sense of mission in the world--or by the more mundane realities that have at times conflicted with those ideals--episcopacy, the Divine Right of Kings, Southern chattel slavery.

Author Kevin Phillips (one of the show more most important American political analysts of his generation) finds a remarkable demographic continuity in all areas--geography, religion and politics--between the two opposing sides in each of the three wars he considers. In the 1620s and 1630s, it was from the Puritan populations of East Anglia and Southwest England that the nascent settlements in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island drew their populations; Oliver Cromwell himself at one point boarded a ship bound for Massachusetts Bay, but was prevented from setting sail by Royal officials. Those Puritans who remained behind--the brothers and fathers of the original New England settlers--became the backbone of the Long Parliament that stood against Charles I in the 1640s, made war against their Sovereign and ultimately took the step (unparalleled in British history) of ordering the execution of their monarch and establishing an English republic. Following the English Civil War, many of the veterans of the defeated Royalist armies fled England and settled in Virginia and the Carolinas--the University of Virginia's athletic teams are today nicknamed the Cavaliers because this was the name by which Royalist soldiers were known.

Come the American Revolutionary War, and in both Britain and the colonies the same divisions reassert themselves. In England, support for the Revolutionaries was strongest in East Anglia and the Southwest, the old stomping ground of the Puritans--and also by now the hotbed of the Whigs, the political party opposed to Royal influence in Parliament. Meanwhile, in the colonies themselves, the independence movement itself was really just a product of Puritan New England, and were it not for some skilful political manoeuvring by John Adams of Massachusetts and Benjamin Franklin (of Pennsylvania, but born and raised in Boston) at the Second Continental Congress, might possibly have never spread southward to the other colonies, just as it never spread northward into the Canadas. Conversely, the South, with its Cavalier heritage, was (along with New York and Philadelphia) precisely the area most opposed to the Revolutionary cause.

And these trends continue into the American Civil War. Again the impetus for both Unionism and abolition comes almost wholly from New England, and from a strip that extends horizontally across the map of the United States through upstate New York, Michigan and Wisconsin (Phillips calls this area "Greater Connecticut") that was settled by pioneers from southern New England. And I hardly have to say where the secessionist, anti-abolition sentiment arose (though I think its notable that, as with the Revolutionary War, the strongest antiwar sentiment in the North again came from New York City).

Looked at through Phillips's lens, we see each of these three wars as essentially the same conflict, albeit with the specifics tailored to their individual contexts. But at the root, each sees the conflict between the traditional English belief in a man's right to rule himself and a tendency towards absolutism--whether that absolutism is monarchy, imperialism or one human being owning another. show less

This is quite a book to pore through. I had never thought about the similarity of peoples fighting the English Civil War in the 17th century, the American Revolution in the 18th century, and the U.S. Civil War in the 19th. This is the divide between the landowning aristocracy that supports the crown, respects privileges, and holds slaves on the one hand; and the artisan/small land owner who believes in individual rights, the freedom to make political decisions, and equality of people on the other. Kevin Phillips supports his thesis with a torrent of words and really interesting maps and charts. The notes and index are quite thorough.

Dense as hell, but it does an excellent job of showing how divisions in 17th Century England led to a series of three war: English Civil War, American Revolution, and the American Civil War.

Very good, but deeper and denser than I would have liked.

Have read first 3 chapters. Good so far.

I have not yet read this book but I am very impressed that professor Edward Countryman gave it a very positive review in AHR:

http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http:/...

American History