Civil War recommendations?

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by JOZAWUN

The definitive work on The Civil War remains, of course Christopher Hill's The Century of Revolution 1603-1704.

Ok you are right. There is more than one civil war. Thanks for making the point mr. Curmudgeon

[TimW]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Yes, and I have been meaning to learn more about that. And I'm finding your book available through our state-wide Access Pennsylvania public library system. But it seems primarily intended for PC reading. The user interface seemingly intends to allow sending to an @kindle.com address in 30 page blocks, but it isn't working for me; I would have to transfer it to my Kindle one page at a time. And, looking at that first page, author Christopher Hill gets off to an amaziningly slow start:



I think I'll look further

Archive.org has the text in Epub, Mobi, etc. I can't account for its quality...I haven't checked.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Mike L

The Yale course that I mentioned earlier deals with Reconstruction in some depth. In fact, about a third of the course is solely concerned with that period.

A topic which I would like to read more about is the foreign policies of the two sides, and in particular, the attempts by the Confederacy to gain recognition of the big European powers (and the attempts by the Union to stop them). McPherson does cover that, but I don't recall seeing it discussed much in any of the other books I've read.

Mike

Amanda Foreman's "A World On Fire" discusses British involvement in the Civil War.

[Mike L]

Amanda Foreman's "A World On Fire" discusses British involvement in the Civil War.

Thanks for that, BFisher.

Mike

[LovesMacs]

Has anyone read either The Real Lincoln or Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe? These are two biographies by Thomas DiLorenzo that are critical of Lincoln. I haven't read these and I wonder if they are worth reading or if they are just hatchet jobs.

Mike L, you may be interested in codefree or multiregion DVD players, which are supposed to be able to play DVDs from other countries.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Mike L, you may be interested in codefree or multiregion DVD players, which are supposed to be able to play DVDs from other countries.

Thanks for that, LovesMacs. Actually, after I posted that message about the DVD, I remembered that my current DVD player can play both Region 1 and Region 2. I hardly ever use the thing these days, which is probably why I had forgotten that.

I'll probably buy the Ken Burns series when I've scraped enough pennies together.

In the meantine, I'm about to start reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs, published 1861.

According to Wikipedia, the book was "originally written as a way for Jacobs to get her story told in part to help the abolitionist movement and also to appeal to white affluent middle class women .... The events in the book also help to highlight the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act and its effects on people in the north as well as the south."

Mike

Originally Posted by Mike L

Thanks for that, LovesMacs. Actually, after I posted that message about the DVD, I remembered that my current DVD player can play both Region 1 and Region 2. I hardly ever use the thing these days, which is probably why I had forgotten that.

I'll probably buy the Ken Burns series when I've scraped enough pennies together.

In the meantine, I'm about to start reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs, published 1861.

According to Wikipedia, the book was "originally written as a way for Jacobs to get her story told in part to help the abolitionist movement and also to appeal to white affluent middle class women .... The events in the book also help to highlight the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act and its effects on people in the north as well as the south."

Mike

Your mention of that made me think of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The famous fictional anti-slavery novel written before the war. Supposedly when Stowe was introduced to Lincoln in November of 1862 Lincoln commented: "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Has anyone read either The Real Lincoln or Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe? These are two biographies by Thomas DiLorenzo that are critical of Lincoln. I haven't read these and I wonder if they are worth reading or if they are just hatchet jobs.

Mike L, you may be interested in codefree or multiregion DVD players, which are supposed to be able to play DVDs from other countries.

DiLorenzo is well known as one of the neo-Confederate Libertarians who believed that the South had the right to exit the Union. He has in the past been affiliated with the League of the South organization.

This is what the Southern Poverty Law Center has had to say about the League of the South and DiLorenzo's involvement in it.

So those books probably do provide an out of the ordinary perspective on Lincoln and his presidency.

[morriss003]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

I would think the standard work on the Civil War, and easily the best I've read, is Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative (ebooks, full set). It deals with the entire war and its causes in great detail over three hefty volumes, without ever becoming dry or boring.

Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (ebook)
Vol 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian (ebook)
Vol 3: Red River to Appomattox (hardcover)

I would like to second this opinion. This series is a stunning account.

Probably only of interest to those in the US but the FLP has all three of Shelby Foote's books available as ebooks and in audio format:


http://freelibrary.lib.overdrive.com...rtBy=relevancy

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

DiLorenzo is well known as one of the neo-Confederate Libertarians who believed that the South had the right to exit the Union. He has in the past been affiliated with the League of the South organization.

This is what the Southern Poverty Law Center has had to say about the League of the South and DiLorenzo's involvement in it.

So those books probably do provide an out of the ordinary perspective on Lincoln and his presidency.

.

Thanks for the explanation. I've seen this book in stores, but curiously enough, not in the store at Lincoln's boyhood home in Springfield, Illinois. Now I know why.

I have a recommendation of my own: The History Buff's Guide to the Civil War by Thomas Flagel. This book is a collection of all sorts of rankings and descriptions of Civil War-related people, battles, etc. Books like this are necessarily arbitrary and don't provide a "big picture" of the war but I thought the book was fun to dip into without having to read very attentively. cover to cover. It was a steal at $1.99 when I bought the ebook, but now it's back up to $9 something and still an interesting read but not quite the bargain it was.

[morantis]

There is a book called "An Incomplete Education." I used to own this book and I not sure where it is, but it is a very interesting read. It may only have a couple pages on the Civil War, but after that it is essential to have on your shelf. Whether you are just reading or researching something specific, this books is filled with various alternate looks into thousands of subjects.

The best way I can describe the book is that it can bring you up to conversational level on just about any subject you can think of.

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by morantis

There is a book called "An Incomplete Education." I used to own this book and I not sure where it is, but it is a very interesting read. It may only have a couple pages on the Civil War, but after that it is essential to have on your shelf. Whether you are just reading or researching something specific, this books is filled with various alternate looks into thousands of subjects.

The best way I can describe the book is that it can bring you up to conversational level on just about any subject you can think of.

Many years ago, there was a series of books called "The Bluffer's Guide To..." Baseball, American History, etc. The books claimed to give you just enough knowledge about a subject to converse without seeming completely ignorant.


I made a mistake in my previous post: Springfield, Illinois was Lincoln's home when he was a lawyer and state legislator, not when he was a boy.

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Ok you are right. There is more than one civil war. Thanks for making the point mr. Curmudgeon

Bit rough, considering that I was only objecting to gross insularity and provincialism.i

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JOZAWUN

Bit rough, considering that I was only objecting to gross insularity and provincialism.i

Say what? The OP quite properly referred to the American Civil War. Wasn't anyone else allowed to have one? Or is it that we can't read about it or discuss it, even though it was the seminal event in the history of a nation with over 300 million people? Seriously, who's being insular and provincial, really?