The French Liberal Opposition and the American Civil War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS81 to support the soldiers. Although the war had a leveling effect on the citizenry, the privüeged few were recipients of special favors, and managed to obtain many luxuries as well as most necessities. Mr. Coleman also discusses the problems and changes in industry, business, banking and agriculture; yet he largely ignores the effect of state legislation on economic matters although Georgia enacted more such legislation than did most southern states. Included also is the war's impact on education , religion and social activities. In most cases the clever chapter headings accurately explain the contents, but "Gayer than Richmond" is a misleading description of social life in Athens. Mr. Coleman has relied primarily on local newspapers and manuscripts but has used few monographs on Confederate history, scores of which would have afforded him excellent background material for comparisons and explanations. As it is, he has placed Athens in a vacuum. One omission from the bibliography is especiaUy difficult to explain—College Life in the Old South by E. Merton Coulter, which contains interesting information on Franklin CoUege in wartime and a humorous account of the home guard. Confederate Athens, a heavüy documented study, is factual rather than interpretive . It does not read as smoothly as Mr. Coleman's previous works, nor does he seem to be on as famüiar ground as when writing of the American Revolution. This reviewer believes that more human interest and humor should have been brought into the account. However, this study is a scholarly one and Athens was (and is) an interesting community. A valuable inclusion in the book is a table of local commodity prices for the years 1860-1865 in which can be seen inflation at work. Mary Elizabeth Massey Winthrop CoUege The French Liberal Opposition and the American Civil War. By Serge Gavronsky. (New York: Humanities Press, 1969. Pp. 304. $6.50.) Professor Gavronsky's study is the product of diligent and exhaustive research. He has worked in French and American archives, and the number and variety of his sources are most impressive. Yet, his is a disappointing book. It certainly does not, as claimed in the blurb on the jacket, "establish with utmost precision the influence which the affairs of the United States had on French domestic and foreign policies: on Napoleon IH's administration as weU as on the liberals in an out of government ." During the 1860's the domestic and foreign policies of the Second Empire were shaped by a host of complex factors which the author does not take into consideration . He seems to have lost sight of the forest for his own particular species of trees. There is little in this work to retain the attention of the Civü War or diplomatic historian. This is in no way meant as a criticism, since one of the primary points of the author's investigation was "the role that the United States played in French domestic policy." (11). Indeed, the chief merit of his study is to provide the specialist in French history with a handy compendium of the reactions of the Imperial Government and the Liberal opposition to the nature, issues, and developments of the American Civü War. As might be expected, both the newspapers of the Liberal opposition and the organs of the semi-official press viewed the issues and interpreted each turn of events in a manner designed to improve their respective positions on the home front. Professor Gavronsky shows conclusively that the crisis of American democracy generated a considerable amount of interest, speculation and debate in France. But what did it aU amount to? To what extent did the American Civü War affect policy making in France? To what extent did it influence or hasten the transition from the Authoritarian to the Liberal Empire? The authors offers no new answers to these admittedly difficult and debatable questions. The candor of his concluding para- 82CIVIL WAR HISTORY graph is refreshing: "The United States was not indispensable to the formulation of French political demands. But the chance paraUel between the test of democracy in the United States, and the rise of the French liberals to a position presaging greater activity in the...