A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil
War By Amanda Foreman, published by Random House (2011) Amanda
Foreman’s first book, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, which
was made into the Keira Knightley film The Dutchess, turned
Foreman into one of the hottest popular history writers in the
English-speaking world. Her second book, A World on Fire:
Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War delivers a
narrative based on intensive scholarly research, and confirms
her as an excellent writer. Some readers may be discouraged by
the book’s more than 1,000-page length, but be assured Foreman
uses only as many words as it takes to tell the story. A World
on Fire is one of the most readable books written during first
year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The book looks at
Britain’s role in the Civil War, something which has been done
in both general histories and specialized studies many times
before. But Foreman takes us beyond the diplomatic struggles
that are familiarly told elsewhere and