IGX

A one-volume history of the Civil War and its causes:
http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Cry-Freedo ... 19516895X/

It's about 8 or 9 hundred pages long. Won the Pulitzer in 1989 or so. Fucking tremendous. Amazing, magnificent. It might be the best book I've read in years.

Starts with the economic & cultural transformations of the early 1800s, then the aftermath of the Mexican War and years leading up to secession. Fort Sumter doesn't happen until about page 270. Reads like a novel after about chapter 2 or so, definitely by the time it gets into Bloody Kansas and stuff like that; maintains narrative pace and excitement. Has just about nothing on Reconstruction, it ends at about Lincoln's death, and just has a short epilogue.

Be aware, it's not just a military history. It hits the major battles & campaigns, but balances that with political stuff like the intrigue in England over whether they would recognize the Confederacy as a country, the draft riots in NYC, pressure on Lincoln from Abolitionists and from Copperheads, how the one-party Confederate system actually weakened their political unity, etc etc. If you want straight battle, probably a different book is for you (maybe Shelby Foote). If you want a balanced treatment of the big picture, this is it.

NY Times review of it:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/s ... eedom.html

You can't devorce the politicol from the strategic and tacticle when making an overveiw of modern western warfare, and rarely for any other kind.

DARTH wrote:You can't devorce the politicol form the strategic and tacticle

sthoo

DARTH wrote:You can't devorce the politicol from the strategic and tacticle when making an overveiw of modern western warfare, and rarely for any other kind.

someone post the link to alcoholics anonymous

Why,do we have to check our speling now?