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"The Republic in Crisis, 1848,♯1︡861 analyzes the political climate in the years leading up to the Civil War, offering for students and general readers a clear, chronological account of the sectional conflict and the beginning of the Civil War. Emerging from the tumultuous political events of the 1840s and 1850s, the Civil War was caused by the maturing of the North and South's separate, distinctive forms of social organization and their resulting ideologies. John Ashworth emphasizes factors often overlooked in explanations of the war, including the resistance of slaves in the South and the growth of wage labor in the North. Ashworth acquaints readers with modern writings on the period, providing a new interpretation of the American Civil War's causes"--

Abstract
This essay replies to critics of my earlier piece in Historical Materialism (Volume 19, Issue 4, 2011) which looked at the origins of the American Civil War. The essay re-emphasises the importance of the shift to wage labour in the North, it re-asserts the need to incorporate slave resistance as a key factor in any causal account of the sectional conflict, and it argues that the ultimate northern victory in that conflict should be seen as constituting a 'bourgeois revolution'. It engages specifically with the criticisms and some of the alternative interpretations offered by Charles Post, Eric Foner and Neil Davidson.

Abstract
This paper introduces arguments from Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic1 to suggest that the Civil War arose ultimately because of class-conflict between on the one hand, Southern slaves and their masters and, on the other, Northern workers and their employers. It does not, however, suggest that either in the North or the South these conflicts were on the point of erupting into revolution. On the contrary, they were relatively easily containable. However, harmony within each section (North and South) could be secured only at the cost of intersectional conflict, conflict which would finally erupt into civil war. The Civil War was a 'bourgeois revolution' not only because it destroyed slavery, an essentially precapitalist system of production, in the United States but also because it resulted in the enthronement of Northern values, with the normalisation of wage-labour at their core.

An examination of the role of foreign assistance organizations in promoting the diffusion of renewable energy systems to the Ru sectors of the world discusses the background to current energy problems of much of the developing world -- spiraling world prices for fossil fuels, lack of indigenous reserves of petroleum, & rapidly expanding populations -- & the results of these factors. Focus is on current approaches of the foreign assistance community to an alternation solution to the energy problem of developing countries -- the introduction, adaptation, & diffusion of renewable energy technologies. Also examined are the impacts of foreign assistance procedures on acceptance of these new technologies. Argued for are: the importance of local participation; technology adaptation to local customs, traditions, & needs; & the sharing of information developed by donor organizations on the performance of renewable energy systems in the field. Modified HA.