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: 1/30/13
Lincoln’s Hundred Days (2012)
“The Halls of Congress are like a dirty privy,” William Porcher Miles noted in 1858—“a man will carry off some of the stink even in his clothes.”1 As depicted in Louis...
Published: 1/23/13
The Civil War in the West (2012)
The Civil War West is quickly becoming all the rage, emerging as the theme of conferences, the focus of panels dedicated to new directions in the field, and even appearing...
Published: 1/23/13
The Gentlemen and the Roughs (2010)
Positing the Union army as northern society in microcosm, Lorien Foote argues for a vibrant culture of honor in the Union ranks. This northern honor operated along a sliding scale—from...
Published: 1/9/13
The Fire of Freedom (2012)
A difficult scholarly challenge is rescuing from the dustbin of the past persons of historical importance, who for whatever reason have fallen into obscurity. This task is ably handled by...
Published: 1/2/13
Django Unchained (2012)
That Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” is the most effective depiction of American slavery in the recent history of feature films is somewhat surprising and deeply disturbing. The first scenes and...
Published: 12/26/12
A Taste For War (2011)
Historians have long tried to capture the experience of the common soldier ever since Bell Wiley wrote Johnny Reb (1943) and Billy Yank (1952). Since then they have described everything from their views...
Published: 12/18/12
The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory (2012)
Few infantry units in the Federal or Confederate armies match the Iron Brigade in reputation or accomplishment. Distinguishing themselves at the Brawner Farm, on South Mountain, during the Battle of...
Published: 12/12/12
The Great Heart of the Republic (2011)
Adam Arenson’s engaging study of mid-nineteenth-century St. Louis is a story of national potential and national failure. Located at the intersection of North, South, and West, St. Louis requires us...
Published: 12/10/12
Holiday Civil War Trivia Contest: Winner
Trivia Question: A skirmish at this place on October 29, 1862, is widely regarded as the first time black troops in the Union Blue engaged in combat during the Civil War. Correct...
Published: 12/5/12
Faces of the Civil War (2012)
Ron Coddington’s Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories grew out of his interests as a photographer and a collector of Civil War-era cartes de visite....
Published: 11/28/12
Lincoln (2012) [Take 2]
Movies can negatively shape popular perceptions of history. Birth of a Nation (1915) helped lead to the revival of the Klan. Gone with the Wind (1939) still shapes many peoples’ comprehensions of slavery. The...
Published: 11/21/12
Lincoln and the Election of 1860 (2011)
This volume, part of a series entitled “The Concise Lincoln Library,” focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s role in the momentous events of 1860—the Republican presidential nomination in May, and his subsequent...
Published: 11/12/12
Lincoln (2012) [Take 1]
It is long past time for historians to abandon the expectation that historical films will be historically accurate down to their most minute detail. Achieving this kind of authenticity is...
Published: 11/7/12
Lee and His Generals (2012)
A new collection of essays explores the distinguished historian T. Harry Williams and topics shaped by his work. Editors Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott have crafted Lee and...
Published: 10/31/12
War’s Desolating Scourge (2012)
War’s Desolating Scourge is a fascinating study of the Federal occupation of North Alabama, and the continued defiance of loyal Confederates in the face of shifting political and military aims. Much...
Published: 10/24/12
The Peninsula Campaign (2012)
The subject of African Americans fighting for the South tends to generate two polar responses: either it’s a neo-Confederate fantasy with no more legitimacy than Holocaust denial, or it’s a...
Published: 10/10/12
The Tribunal (2012)
The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid is a welcome addition to a small collection of Brown readers, including another by editors John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd, Meteor...
Published: 10/3/12
Decided on the Battlefield (2012)
Author David Alan Johnson, a biographer of J. Edgar Hoover, makes his first foray into Civil War history with this vivid though ultimately flawed account of Lincoln’s re-election campaign and...