Reviewed by:

• A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era by Andrew F. Lang
• Catherine V. Bateson (bio)

Edmund Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom has been a seminal part of American studies scholarship since its first publication in 1975. Morgan’s core ideas about the American paradox of liberty and early democracy on the one hand (albeit for a white man’s republic) and growing entrenched African slavery and enslaved subjugation on the other, have engrained foundational thinking about the [End Page 61] early American republic. These two paradoxical tensions formed the making of the United States of America—and of American exceptionalism. Andrew F. Lang’s A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism updates Morgan’s enduring views by shifting the focus to the antebellum and Civil War eras. Through this rich study, Lang considers another paradox of tensions for the nation to grapple with at mid-century.

For Civil War scholars, A Contest of Civilizations is a familiar story about the context of the conflict’s coming. It is also a broadly familiar story about American exceptionalism debates and definitions. Lang confidently approaches the period from a new angle, presenting a knowable story to generate in-depth understanding around how the war raised contested questions about what the Union was for Americans, and how it created problems for the meaning of American Exceptionalism when slavery’s incompatibility with the country’s founding principles were put under extreme conflict pressure. Prominent African American abolitionists and thinkers articulated this concern alongside white pro- and antislavery and secessionist debaters. By appropriating “the language of American civilization,” Lang notes, “the concept of Union” was used to “contest the unjust racial exclusions hosted by a white democracy” (61). Even when Frederick Douglass challenged the meaning of the Fourth of July in 1852, he paradoxically—and simultaneously—“lambasted white supremacy” and championed the blueprint of American civilization (the Constitution) as “a glorious liberty document” (61).

Being a nation of paradoxes is what marks the United States’ nineteenth-century exceptionalism. The book’s focus around this continual tension is laid out early on in Lang’s declaration that his research “engages [with] the paradoxical questions raised by nineteenth-century exceptionalist conviction, civilizationist discourse, and conservative practice,” which led to debate over “the contest interpretations of American civilization” for those caught up on both sides of the sectional divided (13). By starting in the antebellum period, the study also shows that competing interpretations predated the war and, furthermore, tied to international revolutions through the 1840s–1860s as “diverse concepts of nationhood” reshaped Europe (15). Indeed, Americans’ own understandings of their homeland’s impending conflict were shaped by international concerns, and not always positively. Concerned that failed democratic nationalist experiments before the war would travel across the ocean, Lang includes a brilliant line from an antebellum Philadelphian newspaper that argued how American secessionist disunion would “Europeanize this content” and end peaceful American civilization as it was known (101). Little wonder that Union acceptance of the Confederacy’s “unconditional but merciful surrender” in 1865 was an attempt to illustrate how exceptional “civilized republics” could practice “peaceful restraint” by comparison to European counterparts (295). [End Page 62]

Lang’s book is also presented in an exceptional way—rather than having long chapter titles, the eight central chapters are given single words that reflect where each chapter is in the chronological narrative. Starting with “Union,” Lang subsequently assesses the “Causes,” “Purposes,” and “Conduct” of the war before dealing with “Insurrection.” This fifth chapter adds weight behind interpretations of African American Union military service as a slave uprising in its own right and showed agency in securing emancipation through the bayonet. The final three chapters of the book focus on the Civil War’s “Endings,” “Consequences” and “Peace,” with some discussion looking forward to how American exceptionalism changed again in Reconstruction—a period that Lang argues “reflected an enduring paradox of American exceptionalism...

审阅者：

• 文明的较量：揭露内战时期美国例外论的危机 作者：安德鲁·朗 (Andrew F. Lang)
• 凯瑟琳·V·贝特森（简介）

埃德蒙·摩根的《美国奴隶制、美国自由》自 1975 年首次出版以来一直是美国研究学术的重要组成部分。摩根关于美国自由和早期民主悖论的核心思想一方面（尽管是针对白人共和国）另一方面日益根深蒂固。另一方面，非洲奴隶制和奴隶征服已经根深蒂固地影响了关于早期美国共和国的基本思想[完第 61 页]。这两种矛盾的紧张关系造就了美利坚合众国——以及美国例外论。安德鲁·F·朗的《文明的竞赛：揭露美国例外论的危机》通过将焦点转移到内战前和内战时代，更新了摩根的持久观点。通过这项内容丰富的研究，朗思考了国家在本世纪中叶需要应对的另一个紧张矛盾。

对于内战学者来说，《文明的竞赛》是一个关于冲突即将到来的背景的熟悉故事。这也是一个关于美国例外论辩论和定义的广为人知的故事。朗自信地从一个新的角度探讨这一时期，讲述了一个众所周知的故事，以深入了解战争如何提出了关于联邦对于美国人来说意味着什么的争议性问题，以及它如何为美国例外主义的含义带来了问题当奴隶制与建国原则不相容，并面临极端的冲突压力时。著名的非裔美国废奴主义者和思想家与白人支持和反对奴隶制以及分裂主义辩论者一起表达了这一担忧。朗指出，通过挪用“美国文明的语言”，“联盟的概念”被用来“对抗白人民主国家所实行的不公正的种族排斥”(61)。即使当弗雷德里克·道格拉斯 (Frederick Douglass) 在 1852 年挑战七月四日的含义时，他矛盾地——同时——“猛烈抨击白人至上”，并将美国文明的蓝图（宪法）拥护为“一份光荣的自由文件”(61)。

作为一个充满悖论的国家是什么标志着美国十九世纪的例外论。本书围绕这种持续的紧张局势展开了早期的讨论，朗宣称他的研究“涉及十九世纪例外论信念、文明主义话语和保守主义实践所提出的自相矛盾的问题”，这引发了关于“竞争”的争论。对于那些陷入两派分歧的人来说，“对美国文明的解释”（13）。该研究从内战前开始，还表明，相互竞争的解释早在战争之前就存在，而且，随着“多元化的民族概念”重塑了欧洲，这些解释与 1840 年代至 1860 年代的国际革命联系在一起 (15)。事实上，美国人对自己祖国即将发生的冲突的理解是受到国际关注的影响，而且并不总是积极的。由于担心战前失败的民主民族主义实验会跨越大洋，朗引用了战前费城报纸上的一段精彩台词，该台词认为美国的分裂主义分裂将如何“使这些内容欧洲化”并结束众所周知的和平的美国文明（101）。毫不奇怪，联邦在 1865 年接受南部邦联的“无条件但仁慈的投降”，是为了说明与欧洲同行相比，特殊的“文明共和国”如何能够实行“和平克制”(295)。朗引用了战前费城报纸的精彩台词，该台词认为美国的分裂主义分裂将如何“使这些内容欧洲化”并结束众所周知的和平的美国文明（101）。毫不奇怪，联邦在 1865 年接受南部邦联的“无条件但仁慈的投降”，是为了说明与欧洲同行相比，特殊的“文明共和国”如何能够实行“和平克制”(295)。朗引用了战前费城报纸的精彩台词，该台词认为美国的分裂主义分裂将如何“使这些内容欧洲化”并结束众所周知的和平的美国文明（101）。毫不奇怪，联邦在 1865 年接受南部邦联的“无条件但仁慈的投降”，是为了说明与欧洲同行相比，特殊的“文明共和国”如何能够实行“和平克制”(295)。[完第 62 页]

朗的书的呈现方式也很独特——八个中心章节没有很长的章节标题，而是用单个单词反映了每个章节在时间顺序叙述中的位置。从“联盟”开始，朗随后评估了战争的“原因”、“目的”和“行为”，然后再讨论“起义”。第五章增加了将非裔美国人联盟兵役解释为奴隶起义本身的分量，并展示了通过刺刀确保解放的力量。本书的最后三章重点关注内战的“结局”、“后果”和“和平”，并进行了一些讨论，展望了美国例外论如何在重建中再次发生变化——朗认为，这一时期“反映了美国持久的悖论”。例外论...