The worldâ??s biggest superpower has a problem. The citizens of a nation overseas have risen up against their tyrannical rulers, determined to claim liberty even if it takes a civil war. As the most powerful global advocate of freedom, the superpower has to admire the rebelsâ?? cause. Should it help them? Humanitarians argue that intervention can prevent hundreds of thousands of civilians from suffering hideous state-sponsored subjugation. Economic considerations also loom large: one of the superpowerâ??s most valuable commodities comes from this region, and trade disruptions will have an immediate impact at home. It may sound like Americaâ??s dilemma over Libya in 2011, but like so much of the â??news,â?
it actually describes history. In 1861, the United States was the nation divided by civil warâ??and Britain, the pre-eminent military and industrial power, had to decide how to respond. Amanda Foremanâ??s teeming, bustling book delivers a panoramic history of â??Britainâ??s crucial role in the American Civil War.â? While a torrent of sesquicentennial volumes provide the twenty-thousandth-and-counting analyses of how war divided Americans, A World on Fire promises something fresh: a chronicle of how the conflict split Britons, too, from Westminster politicians debating which, if any, side to support, to legions of volunteers who decided with their feet by enlisting in Union and Confederate forces. Foreman attracted a mass audience with her best-selling biography Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, and she plays to that bookâ??s strengths by opening A World on Fire with a high society ball. But the twirling skirts (propped up, Foreman pauses typically to note, by â??W.S. Thompsonâ??s new steel crinoline cagesâ?) form only a decorative prologue to Foremanâ??s deadly story, a myth-shattering saga of political intrigue, moral confusion, and inescapable gore.
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