Gertrude Stein remarked in the 1930s that “by the methods of the civil war and the commercial conceptions that followed it America created the twentieth century”. Furthermore, she reasoned, “since all the countries are now either living or commencing to be living a twentieth century life, America having begun the creation of the twentieth century in the sixties of the nineteenth century is now the oldest country in the world” (97). The United States Civil War (1861-1865) indeed fueled industrialization and the consolidation of capital, among other hallmarks of economic modernity. But it also constituted, as Stein implies, a national rebirth – a social and political transformation of a suddenness and magnitude that few nations have endured.
No government was overthrown, but an
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Citation: Hager, Christopher. "American Civil War". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 April 2005; last revised 29 April 2020. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=32, accessed 24 November 2024.]
