Spectator of America

by Edward Dicey

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812901770
• ISBN13: 9780812901771
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co
• Length: 318 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Civil War America through the eyes of an English visitor

Edward Dicey was an English journalist writing for "The Spectator" and "MacMillan's Magazine" when he came to America early in 1862 to report on the Civil War and to gather impressions of the country at large. He arrived at and wrote about New York, especially the press; he then went to Washington and wrote extensively about Congress, Lincoln, and the Border States. Sympathetic to the North, Dicey spends a lot of time analyzing the slavery issue, including his take on the feelings of the country about the abolitionist movement (Dicey felt most people cared little about it) and the debate over fighting the war to preserve the union versus freeing the slaves. This issue permeates the book more than any other, and Dicey's examination is fair and thorough. He wishes to go to the Peninsular to join McLellan's army there, but is denied permission. So he ventures west through Ohio to southern Illinois and then north to Racine, Wisconsin, where he stays with a friend for awhile. He reports on these areas and is impressed with the growth that is occurring throughout the West. He returns east to Boston before sailing back to England six months after he arrived. Dicey's account of his observations is fascinating, among the best I've read by a foreign visitor to the country. The war itself is never dealt with directly but is constantly in the background, and the motivations that inspire both North and South to fight a civil war are topics Dicey finds compelling and important. His impressions of the people and places he visits, from bustling New York to rural Illinois, are intriguing and engrossing. He is highly impressed with America and has mainly good things to say about it. I would recommend this book unquestionably to anyone interested in the Civil War period.