The year is 1853. The place is Charleston, South Carolina, a city inhabited in part by some of the most elite Southern aristocrats of the day, as well as, for the first time in his life, the British consul Robert Bunch. Bunch was appointed to accomplish several different tasks, but primarily to attempt to smooth over any Southern hostility directed at the United Kingdom and ever so subtly circulate and socialize enough to keep an eye on the mood of the city. He was hoping to understand a people whose eagerness and tendency toward mob mentality may be the deciding factor in determining the very fate of the Union of the United States, specifically whether or not it will remain as named: united.

Why does Britain care? The answers varied even at the time. Part of it may have been moral outrage over the institution of slavery and attempts to reopen the Middle Passage (African slave trade), but just as much of Britain’s concern, if not more, stemmed from the fact that the Southern half of the United States was supplying Britain with more cotton than anywhere else in the world, and Britain would have liked it to stay that way, moral outrage be damned.

America’s morbid obsession with its own Civil War is a well-documented and well-worn phenomena. However, if any dare think interest in that period of American history that saw the dismantling of the Union and the waging of a war more violent than any that preceded it has begun to wane, think again. Author Christopher Dickey’s recent work, OUR MAN IN CHARLESTON, highlights all too well the reality that, for writers and readers alike, this subject remains as curiously fascinating today as it ever has.

"The level of precision in Dickey’s language, as well as his tendency to shy away from grandiose and generalizing statements, is certainly reminiscent of the journalist’s commitment to communicating the facts exactly as they are without losing the interest of his audience."

With militant efficiency, the book’s title manages to reinvigorate the status of historical nonfiction dealing with the Civil War while also rising above and beyond the boundaries of that genre to encapsulate the entirety of the world as it was some 150 years ago. Although in some ways the title might be construed as misleading, it is accurate in its simultaneous breadth and specificity of subject. It cannot be said that the book is in any way lacking sufficient and varied thematic material. On the contrary, the text is saturated with topics ranging from the insufficiency of morality in the face of monetary concern and ambition to the complexity and fragility of the relationships between both the Northern and Southern United States of America and the United Kingdom, and the ingrained hypocrisy of entire generations to the commonplace brutality of slavery and the slave trade.

While Dickey does make extensive use of Bunch’s letters to other members of the British government, it cannot be said that Bunch carries this text. His true personage is practically hidden behind his words, written specifically to his overseers most often, and Dickey skates over any details of his personal life with a few lines here and there about his wife and children. We are meant to know two things about Bunch that are needed to understand the situation around him: 1) He is ambitious, and 2) He is rather charming --- that is, at least to those he purposefully aims to charm. In many ways, Bunch seems to be a stand-in for one of countless bureaucrats, diplomats and politicians operating at this time, a single man to represent the exhaustive no-win situation that was about to boil over. He hasn’t abandoned his morals, but neither has he abandoned his ambition, and the dividing line between the two appears less passable each day. It was a situation no doubt facing countless individuals, both American and British, when all of a sudden they were forced to make decisions for which there seemed to be no right answer.

The level of precision in Dickey’s language, as well as his tendency to shy away from grandiose and generalizing statements, is certainly reminiscent of the journalist’s commitment to communicating the facts exactly as they are without losing the interest of his audience. Dickey walks a fine line when it comes to captivating a readership for over 300 pages, but he makes a good effort of it. If I didn’t speed through the book like I might a well-worn thriller or murder mystery, the pace didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought it would, most likely because of the diligence Dickey exerted in explaining, and then explaining again, what was perhaps one of the most complicated political, economic and social decades in centuries with a patient prose that is never dull and only asks as much of the reader as he is able to provide.

OUR MAN IN CHARLESTON, while perhaps not quite the spy thriller the title seems to suggest, is still entertaining and informative. It may be long and a tad slow for some folks, but it’s not so much the details that bog down the book as it is the ever-present thickness of that hot, humid Southern air.