The Cause of All Nations: an International History of the American Civil War

Every now and then, certain Civil War devotees need a stinging slap across the face to pull us out of the narrow-focus trance of battle studies and biographies, and raise our awareness of the larger, global ramifications of the War of Southern Aggression. 

This new title (released December 2014 by Basic Books) is being well received, and looks like just the ticket. I'm intrigued enough by this one to bump it up to somewhere near the top of the stack. 

Don Doyle, a Californian who got his doctorate at Northwestern, is Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. You can get a good sense of what this work is about through book reviews (Chicago Tribune, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal), an interview (Civil War Monitor), read an excerpt at Salon.com, or find other links to more reviews and articles on Facebook.