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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: May 17, 2020 at 2:13:47 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Socialisms]: Pente on Kulikoff, 'Abraham Lincoln > and Karl Marx in Dialogue' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Allan Kulikoff. Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx in Dialogue. New York > Oxford University Press, 2018. 150 pp. $99.00 (cloth), ISBN > 978-0-19-084464-6; $18.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-19-021080-9. > > Reviewed by Graeme Pente (University of Colorado Boulder) > Published on H-Socialisms (May, 2020) > Commissioned by Gary Roth > > Lincoln and Marx > > In a new installment of Oxford University Press's Dialogues in > History series, historian Allan Kulikoff offers carefully curated > primary documents to place Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx in > conversation for an undergraduate audience. The documents--not only > speeches and letters but journal articles, maps, political cartoons, > illustrations, and excerpts from _Capital_ (1867)--cover a range of > subjects pertaining to mid-nineteenth-century political economy. > Lincoln and Marx address access to land, agricultural and industrial > labor, and, of course, slavery. Their writings also argue the purpose > and progress of the US Civil War, with Marx astutely penetrating to > the heart of the conflict from the outset despite the official > prevarications of the politician and lawyer Lincoln. > > Kulikoff contrasts the two men's views throughout the book. He > emphasizes that both advocated the supremacy of labor. Lincoln, > however, remained within the Jeffersonian limit of providing land to > every white male citizen as a precondition of his competency. > Conversely, Marx saw the destruction of more blatantly coercive forms > of labor as a necessary prerequisite to the emancipation of workers > everywhere, which explains why he and Friedrich Engels followed > developments in the US war so closely. Kulikoff also shows the bind > in which Lincoln found himself, waging a "constitutional war" before > the Emancipation Proclamation finally made it a revolutionary one. > Typically, Marx recognized the central role of labor regimes in the > struggle. In October 1861, the foreign correspondent for the _New > York Tribune_ explained to readers that though "the North professed > to fight for the Union, the South gloried in rebellion for the > supremacy of Slavery" (p. 55). Placing Lincoln and Marx in > conversation is not simply a useful conceit of Kulikoff's invention. > Marx did write to Lincoln directly on behalf of the recently founded > International Workingmen's Association at the end of 1864 to > congratulate the president on his reelection (the American ambassador > Charles Francis Adams issued the official reply in January 1865). > This remarkable exchange barely merits treatment in the numerous > recent biographies of Marx around the bicentennial of his birth. Yet > it adds a further historical connection to the worthwhile comparison > Kulikoff draws between these two important figures. > > In emphasizing how closely observers abroad--and Marx, in > particular--monitored the US Civil War, Kulikoff consciously follows > the efforts of Robin Blackburn in _Marx and Lincoln_ (2011) and Don > H. Doyle in his excellent treatment of the competition between the > United States and the Confederacy for support from European powers in > _The Cause of All Nations _(2015). Kulikoff offers a briefer account > with a greater variety of documents than Blackburn, who appends the > full text of a few speeches and articles of Lincoln and Marx to his > lengthy introduction. As a collection aimed at undergraduate > students, Kulikoff's book can serve as a starting point for > discussion of the international context of the Civil War. It reminds > us that the 1860s were a decade of state building, with > internationalism, republicanism, and radicalism circulating in > transatlantic discourses. Veterans of the revolutions of 1848 > populated both sides of the North Atlantic; Lajos Kossuth and > Giuseppe Garibaldi became celebrity revolutionaries; and Italians, > Germans, and Poles waged war or revolted in attempts to establish > nation-states. Kulikoff's book helps bring the US Civil War back into > this broader context. > > Another striking element of Kulikoff's collection is the prescience > of much of Marx's analysis of American conditions. His insights point > the way to an impressive number of recent directions in the > historiography of slavery and capitalism. In an October 1861 attack > on the British press for refusing to support the North in the US > Civil War, Marx invoked "the Southern slaveocracy, setting up an > empire of its own" (p. 57) and he explained to his Vienna readers in > another article that "the Union was still of value to the South only > so far as it handed over Federal power to it [the South] as a means > of carrying out the slave policy" (p. 61). This analysis encapsulates > the core argument of Matthew Karp's _This Vast Southern Empire_ > (2016). Marx's emphasis on New York City as "actively engaged in the > slave trade until recently, [and] the seat of the American money > market and full of holders of mortgages on Southern plantations" (p. > 88) calls to mind the variegated work of the scholars in Sven Beckert > and Seth Rockman's edited collection, _Slavery's Capitalism_ (2016). > Marx's 1846 observation that "without slavery there would be no > cotton, without cotton there would be no modern industry" (p. 34) > similarly sums up the central claim of Beckert's _Empire of Cotton_ > (2014)--though Kulikoff believes Marx overstated the case (p. 42). > Finally, in 1862, Marx wrote to Engels of the North's need to "at > last, wage the war in earnest, have recourse to revolutionary methods > and overthrow the supremacy of the border slave statesmen. One single > [black] regiment would have a remarkable effect on Southern nerves" > (p. 73), presaging Bruce Levine's characterization of the war as a > social revolution in _The Fall of the House of Dixie_ (2013). > > Although Lincoln and Marx are the focus of Kulikoff's book, theirs > are not the only voices in the collection. Kulikoff includes critics > of Lincoln's policy choices, from Frederick Douglass to Thomas Nast, > to suggest the wider range of views on slavery, emancipation, and > racial equality. Kulikoff provides a few lines of context for each > document and clarifies any jargon. This formatting decision, whether > Kulikoff's or that of the press, proves less effective than footnotes > in the text, as the reader gets the definition before encountering > the technical term in its context in the document. For scholars, the > document excerpts are maddeningly brief, but for students they > together offer a window into the thought of these critical > nineteenth-century figures. After all, undergraduates are the > intended audience. The collection would prove a useful teaching tool > for introducing students to liberal and radical perspectives on what > nineteenth-century commenters commonly referred to as "the social > question." It can also highlight for students the international > dimensions of the US Civil War, a conflict widely followed at the > time and now too often considered in an exclusively American context. > This collection effectively highlights the transatlantic discourses > of republicanism, democracy, and the emancipation of labor at a > seminal moment in the nineteenth century. > > Citation: Graeme Pente. Review of Kulikoff, Allan, _Abraham Lincoln > and Karl Marx in Dialogue_. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. May, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54830 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
