Book Reviews
The digital home of book reviews and author interviews—and your source of the most up-to-date information on all things Civil War literature
Published: 1/1/14
WITTENBERG: Protecting the Flank at Gettysburg (2013)
Protecting the Flank at Gettysburg: The Battles of Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field, July 2-3, 1863 by Eric J. Wittenberg. Savas Beatie, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 1611210941. $16.95. Clausewitz tells us...
Published: 12/25/13
FINSETH (ed.):The American Civil War (2013)
The American Civil War: A Literary and Historical Anthology, Second Edition, edited by Ian Frederick Finseth. Routledge, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 041553707X. $54.95. Anthologies of the American Civil War frequently lose...
Published: 12/25/13
HORTON & KLEINTOP (eds.): Race, Slavery, and the Civil War (2011)
Race, Slavery, and the Civil War: The Tough Stuff of American History and Memory edited by James Oliver Horton and Amanda Kleintop. Virginia Sesquicentennial of the Civil War Commission, 2011. Cloth,...
Published: 12/18/13
Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War (2013)
Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War produced by Randall Poster. ATO Records. Release: November 5, 2013. Twenty-three years since the first airing of Ken Burns’s PBS documentary, The Civil War,...
Published: 12/14/13
WHITE: Confederate General Leonidas Polk (2013)
Confederate General Leonidas Polk: Louisiana’s Fighting Bishop by Cheryl H. White. The History Press, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 1609497376. $19.99. In 1861, Leonidas Polk seemed poised to establish himself as one of...
Published: 12/11/13
MCQUEEN: 12 Years a Slave (2013)
12 Years a Slave directed by Steve McQueen. Length: 134 minutes. Premiere: October 18, 2013. When 12 Years a Slave begins, a group of slaves stare at you while a voice from the...
Published: 12/4/13
CLEMENS (ed.): The Maryland Campaign Vol. II (2012)
The Maryland Campaign of September 1862: Vol. II: Antietam by Ezra A. Carman and edited by Thomas G. Clemens. Savas Beatie, 2012. Cloth, ISBN: 161121114X. $37.50. Every serious student of the...
Published: 11/27/13
NATHANS: To Free a Family (2012)
To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker by Sydney Nathans. Harvard University Press, 2012. Cloth, ISBN: 0674725948. $29.95. In the decades before the Civil War, hundreds of slaves ran...
Published: 11/20/13
PATCHAN: The Last Battle of Winchester (2013)
The Last Battle of Winchester: Phil Sheridan, Jubal Early, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, August 7 – September 19, 1864 by Scott Patchan. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 1932714987. $34.95. It...
Published: 11/13/13
BARNICKEL: Milliken’s Bend (2013)
Milliken’s Bend: A Civil War Battle in History and Memory by Linda Barnickel. Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 0807149926. $39.95. The past few decades have witnessed an outpouring of...
Published: 11/6/13
HOOD: John Bell Hood (2013)
John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General by Stephen Hood. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 1611211409. $32.95. If biographers are often guilty of loving their subjects...
Published: 10/30/13
LINK: Atlanta, Cradle of the New South (2013)
Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s Aftermath by William A. Link. University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 146960776X. $34.95. In recent decades,...
Published: 10/23/13
SERRANO: Last of the Blue and Gray (2013)
Last of the Blue and Gray: Old Men, Stolen Glory, and the Mystery that Outlived the Civil War by Richard A. Serrano. Smithsonian Books, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 1588343952. $27.95. As America...
Published: 10/15/13
REVIEW ESSAY: Mosby’s Raids (2013) and Morgan’s Great Raid (2013)
Morgan’s Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio by David L. Mowery. The History Press, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 1690494369. $19.99. Mosby’s Raids in Civil War Northern Virginia by William S....
Published: 10/9/13
WESLEY: The Politics of Faith (2013)
The Politics of Faith During the Civil War by Timothy L. Wesley. Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 0807150002. $45.00. The past fifteen years or so have witnessed renewed scholarly...
Published: 10/2/13
KEEHN: Knights of the Golden Circle (2013)
Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War by David C. Keehn. Louisiana State University Press, 2013.Cloth, ISBN: 0807150047. $39.95. Historians have long delved into the dynamics of...
Published: 9/25/13
The Petersburg Campaign (2012)
The siege of Petersburg remains one of the most understudied campaigns in the American Civil War. Although one can point to several fine studies of individual operations and a few...
Published: 9/18/13
The World’s Largest Prison (2012)
A military prison need not have operated for long to warrant remembrance. That is the primary premise from which John K. Derden begins to record the short history of Camp...