I've read some pretty in depth answers about the American Civil War in this sub. It also seems to me that there is a pretty broad amateur interest in the Civil War among Americans as well. That makes me wonder about a few things.
Why is it so popular? I mean a portion of it has to be that I'm an English speaker, so I read things English speakers talk about rather than history about places where other languages are spoken. Is it because it's a relatively recent event in a sense?
Do other countries or regions have events that are studied by large proportions of the population the way that the American Civil War is? I don't ever seem to see as many people so deeply interested in WW2 for example. They're out there of course, but it never seems to be in as many numbers.
Thanks.
The American Civil War was one of the world's first major military conflicts in which the majority of the participants were literate. As such, we now have huge, huge troves of primary documents to illuminate almost every facet of the era.
The Civil War was also the world's first war to be extensively photographed. Hundreds of thousands of prints and glass negatives (which have unbelievable resolution) can be found online at loc.gov and in many other places. Interestingly enough, many of these shots were actually taken in 3D and can be viewed as such.
Additionally, although there were other wars fought in North America, the Civil War was by far the largest and bloodiest. I think that the proximity of so many historic sites excites people as compared to the travel required to reach European battlefields.
The peculiarities of Civil War historiography have kept the topic near the forefront of the academic mind, as well. The near-immediate rise of the "Lost Cause" movement, answered by a renewed "Centennialist" focus on slavery in the midst of the Civil Rights movement, to today's explorations of spatial and sensory histories, all indicate that there is minimal ossificiation of the topic, especially in the amateur mind.
Just a few thoughts from a public historian focused on Civil War topics. I highly recommend the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz for a fuller discussion of the questions.
Best, Sam
The reason the civil war continues to attract so much interest is because the nation is still split as to the outcome of the war.
The British don't spend a lot of time navel gazing about Cromwell and the beheading of the King because there is now a general consensus about the result (i.e. they are generally glad to have a monarchy again). The same goes for most other civil wars. People stop obsessing about them once a consensus over the result has been reached.
Unfortunately, the wound that still festers in America after all this time revolves around race. At the heart of the civil war was the institution of slavery (and the desire of the south to maintain it). Many Americans were uncomfortable with giving blacks equality at the time of the civil war and many Americans are still uncomfortable with it today. Just look at how much animosity towards Obama is on a blatantly racial basis (and I am someone who doesn't like the President's policies).