Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, residents of these western border states, Abraham Lincoln's home region, had far more ambiguous identities-and contested political loyalties-than we commonly assume. In The Rivers Ran Backward, Christopher Phillips sheds light on the fluid political cultures of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War era. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. White supremacy and widespread support for the existence of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while those in Kentucky and Missouri held little identification with the South except over slavery. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. Ultimately, the pervasive violence of the Civil War and the cultural politics that raged in its aftermath proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping these states' regional identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which Americans think of themselves and others in the nation. The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the western border states as they struggled with questions of nationalism, racial politics, secession, neutrality, loyalty, and even place-as the Civil War tore the nation, and themselves, apart. In this major work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the North against the South, but one within the West that permanently reshaped American regions.

The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border

History

Phillips, Christopher

Americas

Oxford University Press

Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Blacks in the New World)

University of Illinois Press

Baltimore's African-American population--nearly 27,000 strong and more than 90 percent free in 1860--was the largest in the nation at that time. Christopher Phillips's Freedom's Port, the first book-length study of an urban black population in the antebellum Upper South, chronicles the growth and development of that community. He shows how it grew from a transient aggregate of individuals, many fresh from slavery, to a strong, overwhelmingly free community less wracked by class and intraracial divisions than were other cities. Almost from the start, Phillips states, Baltimore's African Americans forged their own freedom and actively defended it--in a state that maintained slavery and whose white leadership came to resent the liberties the city's black people had achieved.

The border states during the Civil War have long been ignored or misunderstood in general histories. This book corrects that oversight, explaining how many border state residents used wartime realities to redefine their politics and culture as "Southern." 
By studying the characteristics of those positioned along this fault line during the Civil War, the centrality of the war issue of slavery, which border residents long eschewed as being divisive, became apparent. This book explains how the process of Southernization occurred during and after the Civil War―a phenomenon largely unexplained by historians.
Beyond the broader, more traditional narrative of the clash of arms, within these border slave states raged an inner civil war that shaped the military and political outcomes of the war as well as these states' cultural landscapes. Author Christopher Phillips describes how the Civil War experience in the border states served to form new loyalties and communities of identity that both deeply divided these states and distorted the meaning of the war for postwar generations.
 • Explains how neutrality and definitions of loyalty and disloyalty during the war, which became key political issues, emerged from the military experience in the neutral border slave states
• Documents how Lincoln's major wartime political issues centered on events or conflicts that originated in the border slave states
• Describes the centrality of emancipation, black enlistment, and their intersection with guerrilla warfare in the border states' experience during the Civil War

The Civil War in the Border South (Reflections on the Civil War Era)

Praeger

An unprecedented analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria’s ongoing civil war Most accounts of Syria’s brutal, long-lasting civil war focus on a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the escalating violence. Christopher Phillips argues instead that the international dimension was never secondary but that Syria’s war was, from the very start, profoundly influenced by regional factors, particularly the vacuum created by a perceived decline of U.S. power in the Middle East. This precipitated a new regional order in which six external protagonists—the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar—have violently competed for influence, with Syria a key battleground. Drawing on a plethora of original interviews, Phillips constructs a new narrative of Syria’s war. Without absolving the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, the author untangles the key external factors which explain the acceleration and endurance of the conflict, including the West’s strategy against ISIS. He concludes with some insights on Syria and the region's future.

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

Middle East

Yale University Press

An unprecedented analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war "One of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published."--Patrick Cockburn, Independent Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war is widely viewed as a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the fray. But in this book Christopher Phillips shows the crucial roles that were played by the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar in Syria's war right from the start. Phillips untangles the international influences on the tragic conflict and illuminates the West's strategy against ISIS, the decline of U.S. power in the region, and much more. Originally published in 2016, the book has been updated with two new chapters.&nbsp; &nbsp;

The essential guide to geopolitics in the modern Middle East The Middle East is in crisis. The shocking events of the war in Gaza have rocked the entire region. More than a decade ago, the Arab Spring had raised hopes of a new beginning but instead ushered in a series of civil wars, coups, and even harsher autocracies. Tensions were exacerbated by the meddling of outsiders, as regional and global powers sought to further their interests. The United States, for so long the dominant actor, had stepped back, leaving a vacuum behind it to be fought over. Christopher Phillips explores geopolitical rivalries in the region, and the major external powers vying for influence: Russia, China, the EU, and the US. Moving through ten key flashpoints, from Syria to Palestine, Phillips argues that the United States' overextension after the Cold War, and retreat in the 2010s, has imbalanced the region. Today, the Middle East remains blighted by conflicts of unprecedented violence and a post-American scramble for power - leaving its fate in the balance.

Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East

A former journalist makes a case for returning philosophy to the people, urging readers to revive the Socratic art of asking good questions. 12,000 first printing.

Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Phillips, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Phillips, Christopher

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Phillips, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border

The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border

Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Blacks in the New World)

Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Blacks in the New World)

The Civil War in the Border South (Reflections on the Civil War Era)

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East

Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy