“Lang’s tour de force is a compelling and essential read. He shows how Americans' self-anointed claim of exceptionalism was, and is, premised on a supposed consensus on liberty’s meaning that never was and perhaps will never be. Vital reading for all.”—Library Journal
“Rich with challenging ideas...Lang reminds readers that many 19th-century Americans embraced the notion with a fervor that colored their unsuccessful effort to avert war, the war’s progression, and its aftermath. That it continues to inform our current day politics, while left unsaid, is nevertheless evident.”—Civil War Times
“Lang has produced a thought-provoking and innovative work prodigiously incorporating the formidable volume of scholarship available on the Civil War era.”—Journal of the Civil War Era
“A Contest of Civilizations is a major accomplishment, a welcome addition to the superb Littlefield History of the Civil War Era, and a valuable guide to the current state of the field. Future scholars would do well to tease out additional iterations of American exceptionalism, a protean concept that, as Lang demonstrates, has been entangled in some of the nation’s greatest achievements and gravest sins.”—North Carolina Historical Review
“A Contest of Civilizations makes a splendid capstone to the Littlefield History of the Civil War series. The book’s measured prose will bring conviction to scholars, particularly those who appreciate knowing what people thought and said, with what they did about it trailing after.”—Journal of Southern History
“A Contest of Civilizations is a sweeping, provocative narrative of the Civil War era, one that will prompt readers to think about the causes and consequences of this conflict in new ways. Lang adeptly weaves together different strands of a complex history to create a cohesive comprehensive story that includes diverse viewpoints drawn from a range of sources. This book expands our understanding of the intellectual history of the nineteenth-century United States and complements existing literature about the Civil War from a global perspective. Both scholarly and non-academic readers interested in the history of the Civil War era will enjoy reading this thoughtful, well-researched book.”—American Nineteenth Century History
“[I]nteresting and innovative. . . . Lang has produced a masterful synthesis that graduate students and scholars will appreciate.”—Missouri Historical Review
“A comprehensive study of the ways in which the Civil War generation viewed the sectional crisis through multiple lenses of American exceptionalism.”—Civil War Monitor
“A Contest of Civilizations is an important contribution to seeing the US Civil War era in a global context and American nationalism as preeminently an ideological enterprise. . . . A powerful corrective to the Americans-as-emulators narrative that characterizes too many 'United States and the world' and nationalism studies.”—H-Nationalism
“Lang’s powerful work deftly shows [that American Exceptionalism] was . . . historically contingent, precise, and internationalist.”—Journal of Interdisciplinary History
