The Civil War may have been the only full-fledged war fought on American soil, but the rest of the world was certainly watching.
You've probably heard of the support for the North and the South from sympathizers in other countries. The interest ran much deeper, with European leaders viewing the war as a chance to further (or defeat) democracy.
Historian Don H. Doyle gives us this broader view in his book The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War.
He joins us to lay out the patterns of the time.