The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America Kindle Edition

As author Kevin Phillips tells readers, “Religion, politics, war, and their interrelationships are what this book is about.” In fact, he asserts, the “great formative events” in the rise of England and the U.S. were wars framed in the concepts of the Puritans and their religious and philosophical descendants. His narrative makes many fascinating connections between religion, ethnicity, and culture on one hand, and political and military alignments on the other. But he tends to minimize the importance of such factors as representative government, political checks and balances, territorial expansion, economic and industrial development, and improvements in technology and communication. While he acknowledges their existence, Phillips does not attempt to compare the relative impacts of these factors on Anglo-American history. Nor does he apply his interpretive framework to other wars (e.g., the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War) to which it might be relevant.

It is interesting to consider Cousins’ place in Phillips’ literary output. The titles of some previous Phillips volumes— The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (1991), Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity (1993), and Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics (1994), suggest his dissatisfaction with the nation’s course. Cousins reflects a very different viewpoint. As he confesses, “My own revulsion with the politics of the United States in 1995-1996 drew me farther into the intricacies of an altogether different era.” He found it “appealing—uplifting, in fact—to be reading and writing about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Tudor, and William Pitt instead of the current cast of characters.” Thus, Cousins, in contrast to some of his other books, takes an optimistic view of American history.

Like all of Phillips’ books, The Cousins’ Wars reflects wide reading in respected secondary works, presents many insights, and deserves a careful reading. But it bristles with questions of definition, emphasis, causation, and interpretation. For example, Phillips argues that wars affected political alignments. But it seems that political alignments produced wars. This is a sort of chicken-or-egg question.

Phillips refers to “the relentlessness of Puritanism in its older and newer forms” in all three wars. Early Puritans had a rather bleak view of humanity. They believed in the total depravity of man, and limited atonement (i.e., Christ died only for the elect); their emphasis was on church membership (available only to those who offered convincing testimony of an intense personal conversion experience). Would Puritanism in this form have had the influence Phillips ascribes to it? Phillips does not provide a detailed description of Puritanism or how it changed over these years. Phillips treats the Great Awakening as an extension of Puritanism. But, while it reflected Puritan influences, the Great Awakening was more eager to convert unchurched individuals than to preserve communities of “saints,” it was implicitly critical of established churches (e.g., the New England churches), and it tended to produce divisions between classes and between the East and the Frontier.

Phillips gives only limited space to the English Civil War. His discussion of this conflict is well balanced, and gives appropriate attention to political, economic, and cultural issues, as well as religion. His interpretation does not differ greatly from that of other historians.

Phillips recognizes that the Revolutionary War was a civil war, and cites various factors that may have contributed to it. His description of events leading up to the war reads very much like a standard history textbook. He concludes, “No single one-dimensional thesis explains the war, however; not even two or three together.” But he argues that taxes and regulations were merely “matches of ignition,” and that “religious strife between the Church of England and the Dissenters furnished the mountain of combustible material for the great conflagration.” Phillips makes no systematic effort to weigh the relative influences of all these factors. Since he alludes to “Greater New England” and the “Greater South,” it might appear that the Revolutionary War should have pitted Puritan New England against the non-Puritan Middle Atlantic and South. But Phillips concedes that a map of America would resemble “ethnoreligious maps of the modern-day Balkans.” There was in fact “a patchwork of regional, religious, ethnic, and economic differences.”

Phillips cites sources of Loyalism other than religion (e.g., commercial ties to England and back country resentment of the coastal gentry). Although he acknowledges the existence of some socially acceptable Loyalists, Phillips characterizes many Loyalists as “transported criminals,” “jail scrapings of the British Isles,” “the failures and ne’er-do-wells drifting west from the older settlements,” “the flotsam of English and Irish prisons,” “crackers,” “poor white trash,” “drifters,” “vendetta pursuers,” “those who, rejecting their previous society, took up a hand-to-mouth existence as hunters, vagabonds, or plunderers,” “malcontents,” “banditti,” “renegades,” etc. Such systematically pejorative characterizations, together with the fact that Phillips never applies any of these or similar descriptions to the Rebels (although there were doubtless some equally rough characters among their number) may lead the reader to question his objectivity.

Phillips argues that religious diversity gradually led to “American tolerance and ecumenicalism.” Presumably, this process was not complete when the Civil War erupted, for he claims that it was fueled by religious differences. In fact, the influence of religion on events leading up to the American Civil War was problematic. Opposition to slavery was not mainly religious; and abolition was not the objective of most northerners. The major denominations had split into separate northern and southern organizations. The evidence strongly suggests that sectionalism was driving religion, rather than the reverse. The motivation for such important wartime legislation as the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railroad Acts, and the Morrill Land-Grant Acts was not primarily religious. Phillips says that Reconstruction was perhaps a temporary tactic abandoned by Republicans after they had consolidated their political, economic, and industrial policies. This implies that their expressed concern for the freed slaves arose more from political motives than religious concerns.

Sometimes, Phillips seems to see history in terms of Anglo-America versus the world. He writes, “Spain, France, and then Germany failed in their successive political and military contests with Anglo-America.” But, in the American Revolution, Spain and France were allied with America against England. (French expenditures in support of the colonists contributed to the fall of the French monarchy.) During the Napoleonic Era, the United States went to war, not against France, but against Britain. The U.S. opposed France’s attempt to install Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico, but Britain recognized Maximilian. Phillips refers to “the great English-speaking victories over Prussian-built Germany.” But the results of the World Wars were not simply “English-speaking victories.” German defeat in World War II was more a Russian victory than an English-speaking victory. In reference to these wars, Phillips asserts that Germany was “the principal loser” in the process that brought immigrants from Germany to America. But it seems that, in the first half of the 20th century, Germany suffered more from the loss of statesmanship than from a loss of population. And Germany recovered much more strongly than Britain from World War II.

Historically, the connection between religion and politics and war had been almost universal. But in modern times, this connection has weakened. What is interesting about the wars Phillips discusses is that with each war the connection between religion and war gradually became weaker. Cousins is a massive volume. It includes an 18-page preface and a 609-page narrative. In the back matter are three appendices, 37 pages of footnotes, a 14-page bibliography, and a 25-page index. Scattered through the volume are 28 maps and 11 tabular presentations. As noted above, in researching and writing Cousins (1999) Phillips was guided by what was for him a more optimistic outlook than that behind some of his previous books. It is important to note that, after writing Cousins, Phillips returned to his customary pessimistic outlook in such subsequent books as Wealth and Democracy: How Great Fortunes and Government Created America's Aristocracy (2002), American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (2004), American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (2006), and Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (2008 ). Significantly, the interpretations in several of these books tend to conflict with those in Cousins.

I'm about half way through and became enthusiastic enough to order A World on Fire to complete the English American connection. Since we now live in the Appalachian mountains, I am curious about the Scots and the Irish. I was most surprised by the anti-Catholic slant to the war to win the Ohio valley. Why the Protestants should be afraid of bishops is as mystifying as it is humorous.

Addendum in April: I still haven't finished the book but I have learned so much about the Scots Irish immigrants in the Appalachians. He explains why they were there and the history of their time in Ireland. As I read into the section on the Civil War, I am cross referencing with an excellent book - The Southern Cross- which tries to find out why abolitionists moving south became defenders of the slave owners. In the Southern Cross she thinks the reason was economic and social, needing the local Episcopal plantation owner's permission to meet and his seasonal feasts were the only decent meals some of the plantation workers ever had.

Phillips explains the theological defense of slavery was part of the second awakening -"the elite southern denominations" but he doesn't say what those were. I would think Episcopalian for sure, and maybe Presbyterians or Southern Baptists - I think this is where many denominations split on the issue. I know the Episcopalians split as well. When I finish the book, I'll write more.

Intersting premise to a fascinating topic. This book details the sectarian motivations which caused the English Civil War, American War of Independence and American Civil War. Phillips weaves several fascinating themes through each period, arguing that they in part drove the Anglo-American world dominance that we are still experiencing today.

This is a refreshing and un-apolgetic take on Anglo-American ascendancy which contribts to the cannon of American History.

It is however, quite dense and rather academic. Not for the fans who want easy to read history. Enthralling nonetheless this book contributed to my understanding of the cultural underpinnings of our great nation.

This is a profound summary of three wars fought over three centuries by the same people groups. The book has not enough of the history of the first war. This writing gives incredible insight into the pockets of settlers who shared the same blood and shed the same blood for three centuries until the one group finally won.

It helps me to understand why modern Americans who are spiritual and even physical descendants of these driven, strong willed, industrious people are so willing to militarily involve themselves into the affairs of others in the quest to set them free.

The title says it all! Religion and war are intertwined in our history and are "The anvil on which some of the most lasting arrangements have been forged." The author wrote this in an effort to understand what's happening today in this country. Frustrated with modern political trends, the author searches for caused by performing modern political analysis on the British Civil war, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War. Very detailed and complex and well worth reading!

The author puts facts out that were never shown to me in any history class. The view we had was the North was united and the South became united after the Union forces invaded Virginia. He shows the relationship got started all the way back in the English Civil War and with the coming to America the old feelings came too. They also intensified. It made me read more carefully so that I would not miss all the author had to offer. For the person who wants to see more deeply into why America is the way it is I recommend this book and this author.

An interesting book on the previous wars in England prior the war that brought about our country's freedom in the Revolutionary war. This book is a little hard to read but well worth the effort.