A collection of scholarly essays exploring the American Civil War from international perspectives. In an attempt to counter the insular narratives of much of the sesquicentennial commemorations of the Civil War in the United States, editors David T. Gleeson and Simon Lewis present this collection of essays that examine the war as more than a North American conflict, one with transnational concerns. The book, while addressing the origins of the Civil War, places the struggle over slavery and sovereignty in the United States in the context of other conflicts in the Western hemisphere. Additionally, Gleeson and Lewis offer an analysis of the impact of the war and its results overseas. Although the Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in US history and arguably its single most defining event, this work underscores the reality that the war was by no means the only conflict that ensnared the global imperial powers in the mid-nineteenth century. In some ways the Civil War was just another part of contemporary conflicts over the definitions of liberty, democracy, and nationhood. The editors have successfully linked numerous provocative themes and convergences of time and space to make the work both coherent and cogent. Subjects include such disparate topics as Florence Nightingale, Gone with the Wind, war crimes and racial violence, and choices of allegiance made by immigrants to the United States. While we now take for granted the nation’s values of freedom and democracy, we cannot understand the impact of the Civil War and the victorious “new birth of freedom” without thinking globally. The contributors to The Civil War as Global Conflict reveal that Civil War-era attitudes toward citizenship and democracy were far from fixed or stable. Race, ethnicity, nationhood, and slavery were subjects of fierce controversy. Examining the Civil War in a global context requires us to see the conflict as a seminal event in the continuous struggles of people to achieve liberty and fulfill the potential of human freedom. The book concludes with a coda that reconnects the global with the local and provides ways for Americans to discuss the war and its legacy more productively. Contributors: O. Vernon Burton; Edmund L. Drago; Hugh Dubrulle; Niels Eichhorn; W. Eric Emerson; Amanda Foreman; David T. Gleeson; Matthew Karp; Simon Lewis; Aaron W. Marrs; Lesley Marx; Joseph McGill; James M. McPherson; Alexander Noonan; Theodore N. Rosengarten; Edward B. Rugemer; Jane E. Schultz; Aaron Sheehan-Dean; Christopher Wilkins “The writers of this collection effectively balance local and global contexts to produce a significant text that is invaluable to any scholar interested in research desiring to move away from ‘pantomime-like North-South, black-white, blue-gray binaries.’” —Jesse Tyler Lobbs, Kansas State University

This biography of Isabel Crawford is a lively account of a feisty and fascinating Baptist missionary. Born in Canada in 1865, she had an independent spirit leading her to remarkable accomplishments in a life marked by obstacles. Her conversion at age ten created a lifelong commitment to Christian service. In her teens a near-fatal illness left her deaf, but nevertheless in 1893 she completed studies to become a missionary. Rejected for overseas service, she was assigned to a troubled Indian mission in Oklahoma. She began her work there with great reluctance but developed a lifelong bond with her beloved Kiowa converts. Her success as a woman missionary created friction with the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and she left the mission in 1906. Remaining committed to the Women's Home Mission Society, Crawford became a sought-after inspirational speaker for them and later served again as missionary, this time in western New York. She retired in 1930 and moved back to Canada in 1942. Crawford is buried, as she had arranged, at her Saddle Mountain, Oklahoma, mission. The biography is enriched by extensive use of Crawford's witty and perceptive descriptions of the extraordinary challenges and variety of experiences that marked her life.