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I know this is a massive side-track, but... How was the American Civil War the "most destructive war the planet had seen at that time"? It had nothing like the

by caf 10y ago

I know this is a massive side-track, but... How was the American Civil War the "most destructive war the planet had seen at that time"? It had nothing like the scale of casualties of eg. the 30 Years' War.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
You're correct, possibly I misinterpreted an American-centric statistic I heard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll Still very bad, but not genre defyingly bad on a global scale, even at that time.
- caf 10y ago
  Yes, when thinking about the events of the mid 19th century it's useful to remember that the United States of that time wasn't the global superpower of today, but just another middle power among many.
mikeash 10y ago
If you really want destructive, check out the An Lushan Rebellion or the Taiping Rebellion. The former killed millions, perhaps several tens of millions, back when the world population was only 200-300 million. The latter was roughly contemporary with the American Civil War and killed 20-30 million people.