Civil War books
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maedbh7's entry here, asking about Civil War books (she's just watched the movie "Gettysburg"):
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The problem with historical fiction is that... well, it's fiction. "Gettysburg" was based on Michael Shaara's book "The Killer Angels". His son Jeff wrote two bookends - "Gods and Generals", which covers the Civil War up to the Battle of Gettysburg and "The Last Full Measure", which covers it up to the end of the War.
Now, they are very well-written books, but there's a certain... Southern perspective on the whole business. The two Shaaras are obviously in love with the romance of the South, the legends of Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in particular. Slavery is barely mentioned, and it's all about states' rights. Well, yes, it was to a certain extent about states' rights - the states' rights to continue slavery.
(Don't get me wrong - I admire Lee and Jackson for various reasons, but I'm just pointing out some of what I call "missing voices")
Note that in "Gettysburg", the only black person to show up is the escaped slave, and he doesn't even know English (women also don't appear, with the exception of one that flirts with the marching soldiers). The discussion about equality is between Chamberlain and the fictional Buster Kilrain (he never existed), and it's more to do with class equality than racial equality, and the War is depicted as a clash of ideologies, without emphasising that those ideologies had a very real impact on millions of people who had no say in the war that was being waged over their fates.
So as well-written as the Shaara books are and as well-made as "Gettysburg" is (it's the reason why I decided to be an American historian), it's an example of the type of consensus history, the easy sound-bite uncomplicated view of history as seen from the point of view of the white, land-owning and male elite that has been shaping the country since the beginning.
The real pictures are more complicated, and there's so much out there that you really need to know what you're interested in. Not to mention that as you read, you have to remember what's being left out in the name of narrative necessity and/or politics. Bearing that in mind, here's a list, not in any order.
From a battle perspective, there's no better place to start than Shelby Foote's lyrical three volume Civil War trilogy, but if that's too massive, try James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", which also talks about the economical and political pressures behind the War.
McPherson is my favorite Civil War historian because he writes a lot, and writes it well. His "For Cause and Comrades" gives voice to the reasons the soldiers themselves were fighting for, and it's an eye-opener. "Drawn with the Sword" is a collection of essays, and touches on the Lost Cause view of the Civil War (i.e. the South could never have won the War, it was all about states rights and the North was a patent aggressor that fought a war of attrition while the South, with smarter generals and limited resources, valiantly struggled against a bullying juggernaut).
The Lost Cause is further examined in the excellent collection of essays "The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History" edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan. Check out in that one "James Longstreet and the Lost Cause" which shows how Longstreet's reputation was savaged after the War because of the need to perpetuate the Lost Cause and iconize Robert E. Lee, with the loss at Gettysburg blamed on Longstreet's "delay".
For more on Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, read "Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine" by Thomas A. Desjardin for a detailed account of the 20th Maine's role at Gettysburg. Also, read the essay "Joshua Chamberlain and the American Dream" from the volume "The Gettysburg Nobody Knows" (edited by Gabor S. Borrit), which examines some of the myths and unrealiable memories surrounding the Battle of Little Round Top, which have been perpetuated because of the movie and Chamberlain's own "recollections".
First person accounts abound. One my favorites is Confederate soldier Sam Watkin's "Co. Aytch", which is by turns funny and tragic as he tells his story of the war from the foot-soldier's perspective. For a Union account, I like "All for the Union", based on the diary and letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes and edited by Robert Hunt Rhodes.
For slavery, there's "Roll, Jordan, Roll", the classic account by Eugene Genovese in 1976 that finally looked at the question as to how the master-slave society was structured, and why did slaves seemingly accept their position for so long. For one of my classes, I just read "Bond of Iron" by Charles B. Dew, a remarkable micro-history of an iron forge in Virginia run by a Northern entrepreneur, reconstructing from account books, diaries, church records and oral history the slave community that grew up around it and the master-slave relations through to the Civil War and after.
I could probably recommend others, but I'm more into the military side of the War than the social. I know there are books and diaries out there about women and the Civil War, for example, but I've never really looked at them. Still, the above recommendations are probably more than you really needed to know.
maedbh7's entry here, asking about Civil War books (she's just watched the movie "Gettysburg"):--------
The problem with historical fiction is that... well, it's fiction. "Gettysburg" was based on Michael Shaara's book "The Killer Angels". His son Jeff wrote two bookends - "Gods and Generals", which covers the Civil War up to the Battle of Gettysburg and "The Last Full Measure", which covers it up to the end of the War.
Now, they are very well-written books, but there's a certain... Southern perspective on the whole business. The two Shaaras are obviously in love with the romance of the South, the legends of Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in particular. Slavery is barely mentioned, and it's all about states' rights. Well, yes, it was to a certain extent about states' rights - the states' rights to continue slavery.
(Don't get me wrong - I admire Lee and Jackson for various reasons, but I'm just pointing out some of what I call "missing voices")
Note that in "Gettysburg", the only black person to show up is the escaped slave, and he doesn't even know English (women also don't appear, with the exception of one that flirts with the marching soldiers). The discussion about equality is between Chamberlain and the fictional Buster Kilrain (he never existed), and it's more to do with class equality than racial equality, and the War is depicted as a clash of ideologies, without emphasising that those ideologies had a very real impact on millions of people who had no say in the war that was being waged over their fates.
So as well-written as the Shaara books are and as well-made as "Gettysburg" is (it's the reason why I decided to be an American historian), it's an example of the type of consensus history, the easy sound-bite uncomplicated view of history as seen from the point of view of the white, land-owning and male elite that has been shaping the country since the beginning.
The real pictures are more complicated, and there's so much out there that you really need to know what you're interested in. Not to mention that as you read, you have to remember what's being left out in the name of narrative necessity and/or politics. Bearing that in mind, here's a list, not in any order.
From a battle perspective, there's no better place to start than Shelby Foote's lyrical three volume Civil War trilogy, but if that's too massive, try James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", which also talks about the economical and political pressures behind the War.
McPherson is my favorite Civil War historian because he writes a lot, and writes it well. His "For Cause and Comrades" gives voice to the reasons the soldiers themselves were fighting for, and it's an eye-opener. "Drawn with the Sword" is a collection of essays, and touches on the Lost Cause view of the Civil War (i.e. the South could never have won the War, it was all about states rights and the North was a patent aggressor that fought a war of attrition while the South, with smarter generals and limited resources, valiantly struggled against a bullying juggernaut).
The Lost Cause is further examined in the excellent collection of essays "The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History" edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan. Check out in that one "James Longstreet and the Lost Cause" which shows how Longstreet's reputation was savaged after the War because of the need to perpetuate the Lost Cause and iconize Robert E. Lee, with the loss at Gettysburg blamed on Longstreet's "delay".
For more on Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, read "Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine" by Thomas A. Desjardin for a detailed account of the 20th Maine's role at Gettysburg. Also, read the essay "Joshua Chamberlain and the American Dream" from the volume "The Gettysburg Nobody Knows" (edited by Gabor S. Borrit), which examines some of the myths and unrealiable memories surrounding the Battle of Little Round Top, which have been perpetuated because of the movie and Chamberlain's own "recollections".
First person accounts abound. One my favorites is Confederate soldier Sam Watkin's "Co. Aytch", which is by turns funny and tragic as he tells his story of the war from the foot-soldier's perspective. For a Union account, I like "All for the Union", based on the diary and letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes and edited by Robert Hunt Rhodes.
For slavery, there's "Roll, Jordan, Roll", the classic account by Eugene Genovese in 1976 that finally looked at the question as to how the master-slave society was structured, and why did slaves seemingly accept their position for so long. For one of my classes, I just read "Bond of Iron" by Charles B. Dew, a remarkable micro-history of an iron forge in Virginia run by a Northern entrepreneur, reconstructing from account books, diaries, church records and oral history the slave community that grew up around it and the master-slave relations through to the Civil War and after.
I could probably recommend others, but I'm more into the military side of the War than the social. I know there are books and diaries out there about women and the Civil War, for example, but I've never really looked at them. Still, the above recommendations are probably more than you really needed to know.