4/8: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 Hardcover – May 21, 2024 by Alan Taylor (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 10 August 2024
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
by Alan Taylor (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/American-Civil-Wars-Continental-1850-1873/dp/1324035285
In a fast-paced narrative of soaring ideals and sordid politics, of civil war and foreign invasion, the award-winning historian Alan Taylor presents a pivotal twenty-year period in which North America’s three largest countries―the United States, Mexico, and Canada―all transformed themselves into nations. The American Civil War stands at the center of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrollment of Black soldiers in Union armies.
1865 RICHMOND
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Professor Alan Taylor of the University of Virginia, his new book is American Civil Wars, a continental history. |
| 0:07.0 | We've looked at North America from the point of view of the United States being torn apart by what was called |
| 0:16.2 | sectionalism at the time, also the politics of the parties, but then again |
| 0:21.6 | slavery and states rights were the crowning issues. |
| 0:25.7 | We go to Mexico and a man named Melkor O'Kampo. |
| 0:30.0 | Who was he, a very wealthy family? |
| 0:36.6 | He was adopted, but he was raised in a very wealthy, prestigious family. |
| 0:41.6 | And Mexico of the first half of the 19th century was an extremely unequal society. |
| 0:47.0 | In which there was a relatively small class, proud of their white skins and their Spanish heritage who dominated society. |
| 0:58.0 | Where and most of the people living in Mexico were people of native descent. They were called Indians or those who were a |
| 1:06.4 | mixed-and-race were the mastizos. And they were the vast majority of |
| 1:10.4 | Mexicans and the great majority of them lived in poverty. So it's a tough society. of elect their leaders and that a majority of Mexicans lacked power, lacked property, and lacked education. |
| 1:28.0 | So, but O'Compo comes to see this unequal society and say this is a great wrong and things must be done to expand education, to expand educational opportunities and economic opportunities, |
| 1:44.2 | so that Mexico could become a more equal society, |
| 1:48.0 | one that could sustain a more stable republic. |
| 1:52.3 | So O'Kampo applies his. a more stable republic. |
| 1:53.0 | So Ocampo applies his elite education for a vision that is quite utopian |
| 2:01.4 | associated with the Liberal Party of Mexico, which had the conviction that if you equalize the rights of people and you weakened the power of traditional institutions in Mexico and those traditional institutions |
| 2:15.0 | were the Catholic Church, the Army, and the wealthy landlords. |
| 2:20.8 | So O'Compo is turning against the class that he'd grown up in. And so he's hated by that class. |
| 2:28.0 | And the political party of that class of people were the conservatives. The conservatives were not so |
| 2:34.5 | committed to a republic. They're open to converting Mexico to some sort of |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.