Thomas Sebrell's Persuading John Bull represents a good idea that should have been better executed. It examines two British-based American propaganda organs: the London American, which ran from May 1860 to March 1863 and became a champion of the Union cause, and the Index, which appeared from May 1862 to August 1865 and served the Confederacy. The book links American events and British opinion to facilitate a better understanding of both, and it provides information about the main partisans of North and South in Britain during the American Civil War. But much of this book is not about “propaganda” at all. Instead, there is a great deal of padding—especially extracts from Hansard and from the correspondence of Palmerston, Russell, Cobden, and Bright—most of which can be found in the work of other scholars. Sebrell would have done better to put his new and important insights into an article for a specialist journal rather than attempt a book-length study that is less than satisfactory on many counts.

Sebrell does not scrutinize “propaganda” as a category, and nothing in the book indicates that the London American and the Index had more than a tiny role in the shaping of British opinion. The reader is left to conclude that neither could induce the British to do anything they did not want to do for other reasons. Pro-Southerners would have been pro-Southerners whether or not the Index existed, and Parliament would have debated US offenses against Britain's maritime rights without the fuss made by the Index. As the author notes, the London American was of no importance to the Lincoln administration, which refused to finance it, and the appeal of both publications was limited by their editorial policies (the Index was pro-slavery and the London American insulted British institutions). Some of Sebrell's conclusions rest on supposition rather than evidence. It is not clear, for example, that General Benjamin Butler was replaced as US commander in New Orleans because the Index pushed the British government into making complaints about his conduct. This assumption about the effectiveness of Confederate propaganda is unwarranted. Were there not more important causes behind Butler's removal? Would the British government not have complained about Butler's treatment of British residents and representatives in New Orleans irrespective of Confederate propaganda?

In making a case for the book's importance, Sebrell goes too far. Even Sebrell acknowledges that the impact of the London American and the Index was limited. Too often he retreats into statements about this or that detail that “historiography” has missed or underestimated. Yet there is no sustained engagement with the work of other scholars. They are mentioned only in passing. Sebrell ought in particular to have considered the argument of Duncan Andrew Campbell in English Public Opinion and the American Civil War (2003) that the overriding sentiment in Britain was indifference to both North and South—that only a small minority became partisans because most people disliked both sides and saw no reason to exert themselves to assist either of them. If this is true, Union and Confederate propaganda in Britain cannot have carried much weight. Perhaps there are problems with Campbell's thesis. If so, why does Sebrell not elucidate them?

Sebrell explores the British political context only superficially. Discussion of the Trent crisis is thin, and the book's account of British attitudes toward slavery oversimplifies. Sebrell offers no analysis of “wage slavery” and the notion of many in Britain that assistance should be given to the laboring poor at home before anything was attempted for blacks in America. Resentment against the leaders of British antislavery also merits attention in this respect. The “cotton famine” is not properly explained. Distress in Britain's textile districts might not have been due primarily to the US blockade and the cutting off of the supply of Southern cotton, but rather (or also) to a preceding glut and to British manufacturers' misjudgment of market conditions. (And was Confederate rationing of the supply for leverage not a factor?) The speed at which the United States was able to achieve naval supremacy over Britain is exaggerated: the author repeatedly refers to it as “sudden” and claims that, by 1863, wherever and whenever the United States challenged Britain, Britain had to give way. Insufficient attention is paid to the manner in which debates about recognizing the South as independent or about intervening in the war as mediator were complicated by the nature of Anglo-French relations and by the British government's many other international concerns. To get dragged into the American war, it was thought, would allow geopolitical and economic competitors to make advances at Britain's expense, on various issues and in various parts of the world. Above all, British policy was pragmatic and shaped by the course of the war. None of this context sufficiently informs Sebrell's analysis.

Sebrell promises photographs of places that played a part in the story of the London American and Index—“to show readers that traces of the events and people significant to these two propaganda journals still exist in Britain today” (11)—but the book includes no such pictures. On the same page, he declares: “This book is the strongest evaluation to date of both journalistic propaganda movements in Britain and provides historiography with an in-depth analysis of an entirely new aspect to the history of the war and of Anglo-American relations more widely.” Unfortunately, the material that follows does not live up to so grand a pronouncement. The book is worth reading, and those interested in the London American and Index will learn from it, but it does not accomplish its higher goals. Furthermore, the writing, riddled with grammatical errors and stylistic flaws, has profited from little if any editorial attention. It is remarkable that the book was approved for publication in its current form, for it falls far short of the conventional standards observed by most professional historians and academic presses.