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Culture #1: The Advent of Realism and the Warring Sixties

The Warring Sixties: The 'Warring Sixties', as the decade of the 1860s has become known, was a time of a great shift in the culture of the United States. The National War brought an end to the optimistic views of Romanticism that had dominated the early nineteenth century and gave rise to the darker and more empirical artistic style of Realism. The bright colors and Classical themes that had pervaded Romanticist art and literature gave way to more utilitarian and commonplace subjects and a truer depiction of what life was like. The development of luzography also allowed for a more realistic vision of everyday life as luzographs were not affected by the artist's interpretation. The Warring Sixties had produced numerous luzographs and paintings of the ongoing wars at the time in both North America and Europe. One of the most famous military paintings during the war is Edgar Degas' "Aerial Shelling of Barcelona", depicting the French bombing of Barcelona in 1868. This was one of the first uses of aerial craft in a direct combat role and shows soldiers dropping small explosive shells from hot air balloons.

Along with painting, Realism became prominent in literature as well. The wars created many potential topics for stories of war and its aftermath, and many authors and playwrights used the realist style to depict every perspective of conflict situations. In the United States, hundred of novels were published during the decade about the National War and the events surrounding it. Two prime examples of realist war literature in the United States during the 1860s are the play "Death of a President" by actor and playwright John Wilkes Booth, and the memoirs of Samuel Clemens before he took over Cornelius Vanderbilt's steamship operations as the industrialist focused on building a railroad empire. Death of a President is a play concerning the events surrounding the death of President Houston and the leadup to the National War. Samuel Clemens' memoirs told stories of his time as the captain of the steamship Proud Mary which ran between Memphis and New Orleans during the years following the National War. Clemens' memoirs gave a jarring look at the state of the southern states after the National War as well as the recovery experienced by the states and cities along the Lower Mississippi River.

The growing popularity and publishing of literary works in the United States also led to further standardization of the English language in the country. While several languages were becoming prominent in different regions, English was pervasive throughout the United States. As more people went to school and became literate in the Untied States, it was felt that at least one language needed to be universal across the country in order to better integrate the nation. In 1886, Columbia University in New York began publication of the Columbiad dictionary, which listed and categorized every single word in use in the English language. It soon gained popularity among all regions of the country and by the twentieth century had surpassed the Webster publication as the standard for all words in use in the United States. Reasons for this include that the Columbiad was much more extensive and inclusive on loanwords from other languages used in different parts of the United States and so was more useful to a traveler or a businessman. By the mid-twentieth century, the Columbiad had become the authoritative dictionary on the English language in the United States, rivaling that of the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's dictionary in Great Britain.

Along with the finer arts, realism also lent its name to a movement in the newly developed field of study of international relations. While the interactions and trends of various forces within and between countries had been studied before the nineteenth century by figures such as Machiavelli, the study of international relations was always in the realm of politicians and leaders, deciding on where to guide their state. In the nineteenth century, this field entered the realm of academics as universities in the major political centers of the great powers sought statesmen and diplomats after the Warring Sixties.

Realism as a school of international relations had its influences in philosophers and political theorists such as Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, but it was German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and English economist and political theorist John Stuart Mill who pioneered the realist theory of international relations. From their examinations of the Napoleonic Wars, the 1860s European wars, and for Mill the diplomatic maneuvering of the great powers in the 1870s and 1880s, Schopenhauer and Mill theorized the basic tenets of international realism. The first was that the state is the main actor in international politics. Their definition of 'state' comes from the Westphalian concept that each state is entitled to its own sovereignty and will strive to protect that sovereignty. The second tenet is derived from this desire to protect itself; in an anarchic international system, the state will always act in its self-interest and in a way that it perceives will best protect its sovereignty. The third tenet of international realism is that the system of state interactions is inherently anarchic, and that there is no central authority that governs the actions of states. Following from this, international realists surmise, war and conflict are constants and will always be present in politics and war will always lead to more war as states seek to build upon or regain assets from previous conflicts. This theory held true for the end of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth, when even greater communications advances and the founding of the Weltkongress started to breakdown the idea of a state-oriented system only operating on self-interest.