Book Review

Patience and stamina, along with the ticket fare, were prerequisites for rail travel in the Old South. But within a decade of the Civil War, dramatic improvements knit together the region's rickety rail system and eased travelers' hardships. If scholars have long recognized this transformation, they have misunderstood its complexities and full import. Like the processes it describes, Iron Confederacies weaves disparate strands together into a seamless whole. A concise summary cannot do justice to this pithy and polished book, which displays exceptional interpretative vigor and commendable wit. Suffice it to note that it is a sparkling example of scholarship that moves effortlessly across the boundaries of business, social, and political history.

1

Scott Reynolds Nelson properly begins by describing the distinctive financial and political arrangements that made possible early railroads in the South. Prevailing attitudes about industrialization and centralized power notwithstanding, southern state governments embraced railroads with untoward enthusiasm, eventually subsidizing rail construction and assuming much of the financial risk. As a consequence, southern railroads became weapons of state and local economic rivalries rather than meaningful catalysts of interstate trade. Confederate commanders recognized these shortcomings but failed to eliminate many of the crippling bottlenecks.

. . .