Partisans, New History, and Modernization: The Historiography of the Civil War's Causes, 1861–2011

Towers, Frank

doi:10.1353/cwe.2011.0025

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 122 publications

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“…Stone [2017]. For a sample of disputes regarding the American Civil War, see Towers [2011]. Wise [1980] and Novick [1988] also remain well worth reading in this regard.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation

Roth¹

2019

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in the ensuing pages, his work also has been determinative of my own thinking on this topic. As I told him, for many years I had taped to my computer screen a quote from him that also ultimately served as an epigraph for my paper "The Pasts": "We choose our past in the same way that we choose our future." What I often imagine myself to be doing is offering an account of why I take this to be correct by reformulating his insights as a conclusion of a type of philosophical argument.Regarding then Danto, Mink, and White, much of this book consists in efforts to knit together insights gleaned from each within an epistemological perspective forged by my readings of W. V. O. Quine and T. S. Kuhn. This allows me to answer questions regarding historical explanation debated since the nineteenth century (see Patton 2015; Dewulf 2017b).A key portion of this book originated from an invitation to develop my views by Mary Morgan and Norton Wise. I received helpful challenges and intellectual impetus as well from conversations with and questions by John Beatty and Ken Waters. As a consequence of their questions I briefly venture to discuss in chapter 4 narratives in science. However, it remained a primary goal for me to address how narrative explanation, and so histories as a form of empirical inquiry, relate to disciplines unproblematically taken to be sciences.At the very beginning of my efforts to weld some three decades of writings into a unified line of thought, Lisa Clark provided invaluable assistance, and to her I owe an immense debt. She diligently worked through a very rough early version of my manuscript with patience, intelligence, and insight. Without her editorial help and extensive suggestions, I doubt that I would have found the project doable. I can list names of only some of the many people whose feedback on one part or another of this project over the years has been of importance to me:

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“…Stone [2017]. For a sample of disputes regarding the American Civil War, see Towers [2011]. Wise [1980] and Novick [1988] also remain well worth reading in this regard.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation

Roth¹

2019

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“…Hayden White famously uses histories of the French Revolution to illustrate this point in his own way. For the case of the American Civil War, see Towers (2011).…”

Section: Science Narrativized: An Example From Evolutionary Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Essentially narrative explanations

Roth

2017

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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This essay argues that narrative explanations prove uniquely suited to answering certain explanatory questions, and offers reasons why recognizing a type of statement that requires narrative explanations crucially informs on their assessment. My explication of narrative explanation begins by identifying two interrelated sources of philosophical unhappiness with them. The first I term the problem of logical formlessness and the second the problem of evaluative intractability. With regard to the first, narratives simply do not appear to instantiate any logical form recognized as inference licensing. But absent a means of identifying inferential links, what justifies connecting explanans and explanandum? Evaluative intractability, the second problem, thus seems a direct consequence. This essay shows exactly why these complaints prove unfounded by explicating narrative explanations in the process of answering three interrelated questions. First, what determines that an explanation has in some critical or essential respect a narrative form? Second, how does a narrative in such cases come to constitute a plausible explanation? Third, how do the first two considerations yield a basis for evaluating an explanation offered as a narrative? Answers to each of these questions include illustrations of actual narrative explanations and also function to underline attendant dimensions of evaluation.

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“…Very different, recent interpretations emphasizing deep structural economic issues are Ransom ( 1989 ), Thornton and Ekelund ( 2004 ), Egnal ( 2009 ), and Ashworth ( 2012 ). 2 Three recent historiographies of Civil War causation highlight the limits of structural approaches premised on modernization: Ayers ( 2005 ), Towers ( 2011 ), and Woods ( 2012 ). naturally require looking beyond economics to capture the full range of human experiences and emotions, but re-creating the overlapping and competing political economies of secession, and the various fears and hopes spawned by what the New York Herald referred to as the "Panic of 1860" (November 14, 1860), provides a clearer understanding of the dilemmas facing politicians tasked with balancing interests and emotions, while ensuring the fi nancial solvency of their respective states.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 2 Three recent historiographies of Civil War causation highlight the limits of structural approaches premised on modernization: Ayers (2005), Towers (2011), and Woods (2012). …”

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confidence: 99%

The Political Economies of Secession

Schoen¹

2015

J Hist Econ Thought

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Economic analyses of American Civil War causation typically focus onlongue duréestructural arguments neglecting specific context and contemporary observers’ predictions about disunion’s effects. This article suggests secession heightened concern about government solvency and intensified a conversation about the nature of American inter- and intra-national trade, one hinging on ideas about relative dependence and positioning within the world economy. Deep South secessionists rested their claims on a cotton-centric economic worldview, trusting that their coveted commodity could finance independence and attract foreign partners. Pro-compromise northerners greatly feared that possibility. Less compromising Republican political economists countered that secession would reveal northern economic superiority and the South’s underlying weakness, eventually leading to voluntary reunion. Though competing sides envisioned peaceful pathways towards their ends, the actions of insolvent central governments—who feared that any compromise on contested forts and revenue ports would undermine the confidence of underwriters—militated against these imagined peaceful ends.

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Partisans, New History, and Modernization: The Historiography of the Civil War's Causes, 1861–2011

Cited by 12 publications

References 122 publications

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation

Essentially narrative explanations

The Political Economies of Secession

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