The Bookshelf

Van Temple's novel "Whisperwood" presents an illuminating exploration of Southern memory about the Civil War.

Mike Bunn's "The Assault on Fort Blakeley" is a fact-packed, authoritative, and amply illustrated book.

John Harris' "The Last Slave Ships" is a model for scholars who wish to place the U.S. Civil War within a broader international context.

"What Though the Field Be Lost" sees the past and present together in their deadly, alien, sometimes ironic and sometimes enlightening embrace.

"Incidents in the Life of Cecilia Lawton" brims with nostalgia for the antebellum South, teems with malice for Sherman, and articulate the fear and loath white Southerners harbored for freepeople...

Katherine Bentley Jeffrey's "First Chaplain of the Confederacy" reminds us of the nuanced role Catholics played in the Confederate and Reconstruction South.

Michael Smith's "In The Shadow of Gold" is a historical novel for our own challenging times.

Deborah Willis' "The Black Civil War Soldier" is a reminder of one of the most compelling stories of the conflict: the efforts of more than 180,000 African American soldiers to fight for freedom.

Bruce Levine's "Thaddeus Stevens" is the first major biography of The Great Commoner in nearly a quarter century.

"On Rising Ground" is a well-researched, well-written, and always empathetic account of a very ordinary soldier and his family.