The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization And the State, 1861-1865 - Rilegato

Wilson, Mark

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0801883482 ISBN 13: 9780801883484

Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, 2006

Riassunto

This wide-ranging, original account of the politics and economics of the giant military supply project in the North reconstructs an important but little-known part of Civil War history. Drawing on new and extensive research in army and business archives, Mark R. Wilson offers a fresh view of the wartime North and the ways in which its economy worked when the Lincoln administration, with unprecedented military effort, moved to suppress the rebellion.

This task of equipping and sustaining Union forces fell to career army procurement officers. Largely free from political partisanship or any formal free-market ideology, they created a mixed military economy with a complex contracting system that they pieced together to meet the experience of civil war. Wilson argues that the North owed its victory to these professional military men and their finely tuned relationships with contractors, public officials, and war workers.

Wilson also examines the obstacles military bureaucrats faced, many of which illuminated basic problems of modern political economy: the balance between efficiency and equity, the promotion of competition, and the protection of workers' welfare. The struggle over these problems determined the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars; it also redirected American political and economic development by forcing citizens to grapple with difficult questions about the proper relationships among government, business, and labor.

Students of the American Civil War will welcome this fresh study of military-industrial production and procurement on the home front—long an obscure topic.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"A superlative and welcome addition to Civil War scholarship... clear, informative and consistently insightful."

(Ethan S. Rafuse Civil War News)

"A good book for anyone interested in logistics, as well as the more serious student of the Civil War."

(NYMAS Review)

"A 'must' for any serious student of Civil War history who would go beyond the usual statistics and battle events."

(Midwest Book Review)

"Anyone interested in the antebellum army, the Civil War, or the role of the military in the American political economy will find this book worthwhile."

(Robert G. Angevine Journal of Military History)

"Wilson says something new and vital about the war by illustrating the role of war and the military in American business and politics. Nothing like it has ever been published."

(Civil War Book Review)

"This clearly written and detailed study of the northern procurement effort represents a fresh take on the 'sinews of war'."

(C. Wyatt Evans North & South)

"The first systematic and comprehensive study, based on original archival research into both military and business records, devoted exclusively to the Union's economic mobilization."

(Jeffrey Rogers Hummel Public Choice)

"A much-needed analysis of Union production and procurement issues."

(Lenette S. Taylor Journal of American History)

"Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay the author is to say that after I finished reading his book I felt compelled to re-write the lectures in my Civil War course that I devote to mobilization."

(Roger Ranson EH.Net)

"One of the most important Civil War books to appear in quite some time."

(Rick Sauers Blue and Gray Magazine)

L'autore:

Mark R. Wilson is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0801883482
• ISBN 13: 9780801883484
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 306