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Summary: The Civil War -- In One Month an Entire War
Review: Jay Winik has done an extraordinary job of reworking the familiar story of the last days of the Civil War by moving the action in and out of sequence without ever losing the essential thread of his thesis: April 1865 was a turning point in American history meriting reconsideration on its own. Winik weaves the increasing weariness of the war torn North and South with biographies of its key players -- Lee, Grant, Lincoln, Booth, et al -- with new insights into the motivation behind the beginnings and the culmination of the bloody conflict in an entirely new way. He explores the familiar themes of slavery, but surprises us with the early urging of Jefferson Davis and other CSA leaders to either emancipate the slaves or arm them -- long before serious consideration was given to it by leaders in the North. He also limns the genesis of sucession, a hot issue years before the firing on Fort Sumter, and the political weight its threat had played before hostilities broke out. Winik gives us snapshot biographies of the dashing and vicious cavalry officers in blue and in grey and their substantial impact on the war's outcome, and the very real temptation to use these brilliant men as guerilla warriors to continue the war despite Lee's surrender at Appomatax. We are also reminded of just how near a thing the Union victory was, dependant upon the better angels of the natures of Grant, Lee, Lincoln and their ability to rise above partisan and regional politics and envision a future of a reunited country. A very readable book, Winik is not afraid to use modern and historical parallels to make his point comprehensible and palpable. By centering the book on the many key events of April 1865, from the fall of Richmond to the death of Lincoln, Winik sums up the essential issues of the Civil War, ever reminding us of the horrific price paid by both armies, fighting to an end that might not have been so bitter had Booth not fired that fatal shot. A great book for Civil War experts and the casually curious alike. The really impressive thing is that the author does manage to pull all of this complex information under the overarching umbrella of one calamitous month.
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Summary: provocative, elegant analysis of Civil War's fateful meaning
Review: Professor Jay Winik provocative "April 1865" examines the fateful consequences of what the author considers to be the most pivotal month in our national experience. Written with uncommon elegance and extraordinary sensitivity, Winik explores the final weeks of the Civil War -- days fraught with military violence, widespread despair and panic, a horrifying assassination and uncommon magnanimity -- and deftly provides a thoughtful analysis of the significance of those momentous events. In addition to presenting a compelling thesis, Winik also provides a gripping narrative to the military and political events of the Civil War, numerous illuminating biographies of pivotal historical characters and convincing cross-cultural comparisons which support his essential argument.Winik augments the now widely-accepted notion that the Civil War was our first truly revolutionary war with the hypothesis that the central historical figures of the late Civil War period, by virtue of political acumen and personal integrity, understood that if the United States were to exist as a country, it would have to cohere as a nation. The United States faced "the most significant question of all...how to reunite two separate political, social and cultural entities that had been bitter military enemies..." Professor Winik's thesis is that "the conciliatory spirit of leaders who led as much in peace as in war...by their example, exhortation and their deeds...spoke as citizens of not two lands, but one, thereby bringing the country together." Consequently, Professor Winik carefully arranges his evidence to buttress his argument that the greatest men of both the Union and Confederacy understood this unique historical opportunity. These men -- especially Lincoln, Grant, and Lee -- were aware of the centrifugal forces of civil war and the enormous danger of guerilla warfare, of terrorism, as a post-war phenomena. Winik's life experiences as a congressional staff member undoubtedly inform his sensibilities about the fragility of national identity in societies torn apart by internal war and unresolves social stresses. Winik admires the eerily charitable awareness of the physically-ravaged Abraham Lincoln; he extols the decision-making of U. S. Grant, a man reviled as a "butcher" of his own troops, at Appomatox; he lionizes Robert E. Lee as a moral leader of near messianic proportions for what Winik determines to be a monumental surrender, not only of his Army, but of the idea of Southern nationality. Yet, "April 1865" is not without its flaws, the most serious of which, in my opinion, is its minimizing the impact of race and slavery on the Civil War and American society. Winik oftens writes about "the South" as if some 4,000,000 African-Americans didn't live there, principally as slaves. His prose tends to downplay the outrageous physical, social and moral degradation human bondage caused. In fact, Professor Winik goes out of his way to speak about tender-hearted moments masters shared with their slaves and how devoted slaves were to their masters. When he speaks of how the Confederacy debated and ultimately determined to manumit its African-American slaves if only they were to fight on the South's side, his writing makes one wonder if the the men and women of Dixie weren't secret abolitonists their entire lives. Particulary galling is his omission of race as a cornerstone of Southern "nationality." Professor James McPherson has ably discussed the notion of Southern herrenvolk democracy -- the notion that all Southern whites were equals (despite gross differences in wealth) because of their superiority to African Americans -- and for Professor Winik to ignore this mind-set is to dangerously ally himself with the "moonlight and magnolia" school of thought on the South and its "peculiar institution." Does anyone seriously believe that if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, African-Americans would have been granted freedom and the rudiments of civil and political rights? Winik writes over five pages about the talents of iconoclastic Southern commander Nathan Bedford Forest without ever mentioning Forest's crucial involvement in the creation of the Ku Klux Klan immediately after the war. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Winik annoints Robert E. Lee, and not Abraham Lincoln, as the superstar of the Civil War. With this reservation in mind, "Arpil 1865" is a supremely impressive work. Winik's description of the abandonment and ruin of Richmond, Virginia is terrifying in its detail. His vivid recounting of the savage hand-to-hand combat immediately preceding the cessation of hostilities will upset even the most hard-hearted reader. The professor's biogaphical sketches breathe dimension and insight into the essential actors on the historical stage. Above all, Jay Winik deserves praise for his articulate and compelling argument about the development of a true national identity as a consequence of war, a uniquely positive outcome when all of past history points in the opposite direction.
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Summary: April 1865: The Month that Saved America
Review: April 1865: The Month that Saved America by Jay Winik is about the last days of the Civil War. A saga of American History that made the nation finally resolve issues that the Founding Fathers did NOT want to touch. This is a splendid well written narrative that is easily understood about the major players involving leadership and human folly. According to the author April 1865 was the turning point in our nation's history. But, the major issues of national reconciliation weren't to emerge till much later in our history. What this book covers are the Southern plan for guerrilla warfare, the fall of Richmond, Virginia, Lee's retreat and Appomattox, Lincoln's assination replete with all of the chaos and coup fears. The book is well wriiten and documentated, but if read with a discriminating eye, you will find errors and insights. I would not make this your only read on the Civil War, but it makes a good adjunct. I found that I was amused at some points the author brought up, others were spot-on. For an author, Jay Winik is a good dramatic storyteller. All in all, I found the military battles to the diplomatic meetings and the presidential succession to be very well and dramaticly written with a modicum of poetic license. The book provides us with a valuable history lesson and a fresh perspective.
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Summary: Required reading for Europeans
Review: Clearly, writing a review simply to say that one thoroughly enjoyed Mr.Winik's book would be an oxymoron because everybody knows that the book is a bestseller. The point I want to make is that any European with an interest in the US Civil War (known in French as the War of Secession) should read Mr. Winik's book, because it provides the European reader with a clear and easily understandable picture of a war which, contrary to what we may think with hindsight, was not necessarily destined to end with a victory for the North and a subsequent reconciliation. The writing is at times a little romantic - in the description of Lee's surrender or Lincoln's walk through Richemond for example - but always enjoyable and interesting. The maps are useful. The author masters his subject but never lectures or patronizes the reader. Delightful reading !
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Summary: Outstanding
Review: If you have any interest in the Civil War you will love this book. If you have any interest in how this country and its form of government evolved without screwing it up, you will love this book. For a career bureaucrat, Winik has a surprising good writing style. He keeps you engaged through out the book. A fun read
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Summary: A good read
Review: Winik is an compelling writer, and he has written a very readable and enthralling narrative. This by no means should be anyone's first or only Civil War book. After you read Shelby Foote or another general history, some of Winik's references and theses might make more sense. This book has some editorial problems - I swear that he on more than one occasion writes about the same subject or event twice, and not on purpose. And there are typos, along with some misinformation. Is Salmon p. Chase the Treasury Secretary or the Chief Justice? (Well, both, but which one when?). And one howler: Stanton's deathbed pronouncement over Lincoln was "Now he belongs to the AGES", not "angels".
Still, I enjoyed the book.
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Summary: Slavery Was Over Even If The South Had Won
Review: Winik's most valuable contribution, which he does not even seem to realise that he has made, it to show that whatever their devotion to the idea of slavery may have been, Confederate leaders put independence first, and were prepared to give up slavery to get it. Winik shows that (1) some prominent Confederate leaders wanted to free blacks and enlist them in the Confederate armies early in the war, but they were ignored; (2) the South did, belatedly and with little impact, begin enlisting slaves into the Confederate armies near the end of the war, with their freedom being a reward for their military service; (3) once these black soldiers were free, they could not possibly have been enslaved again; and (4) once that many blacks were freed, it would have been impossible to prevent emancipation of the rest. By the end of the war, even ardently pro-slavery Confederates were ready to abolish the institution if it meant winning their war of independence. Whatever role slavery may have played in beginning the war, by the end, it was clearly finished regardless of which side won (and economic forces would have eliminated slavery in the South within 20 years even without a war). Winik's work cleary shows the idiocy of those who claim that if the South had won, blacks would still be enslaved. Instead, there would have been a more gradual emancipation, and the hatred and distrust engendered by Reconstruction would not have poisoned race relations. Because of this valuable contribution, as well as some interesting speculations on the possibilities of how the South could have carried on the fight through guerilla warfare, Winik get four stars, despite the predictable "happy ending" where he rejoices that the "union" was "saved." Of course, the voluntary union of states was destroyed by the war, and replaced by a federal empire held together by force. The once-sovereign states (North and South) are now no more than provinces subservient to Washington DC. I see nothing to rejoice about in that.
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Summary: Audio Tape Review
Review: This is an enjoyable book with a lot of interesting information. However, the audiocassette version is a prime example of why an author SHOULD NOT be the reader of their book! It is torture to listen to the tapes and the recording performance distracts from the subject.
It sounds just like someone reading a text when they are unfamiliar with the material. The intonations are off, the emphasis is in the wrong places, and punctuation is missing or unnoticeable. Words are mispronounced and parts sound like disjointed or long run on sentences.
Buy the book and you'll enjoy it! Buy the audio version and you'll probably regret it! I've listened to several hundred audiobooks and this is one of the most difficult to tolerate.
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Summary: Kind of a Stretch of the Facts
Review: This book is very readable and is quite intersting but I do not feel it presents all the facts of this month. Winik provides a brief biography on several of the major participants (Lincoln, Lee, Davis, Booth, etc.) which in my view is useless because you anyone reading this book will have a better understanding of these individuals than a 2 page biography will provide. This book is based on the hypothesis that there was a substantial threat that the South would revert to guerrilla tactics to continue the struggle for independence, but he provides very little factual information that Lee or Johnston were really considering doing this. From all that I have read of Robert E. Lee I consider it highly doubtful, given his sense of honor and training as a soldier, that he would have seriously considered doing such a dishonorable thing as resorting to guerrilla warfare. I cannot see him disbanding his men into lawless groups roaming the counrtyside making havoc wherever they went. I will admit that it is a possibility that the South could have sustained a guerrilla war for an extended period of time and I also agree with Winik that April 1865 was indeed a crucial time in our nation's history. All in all this is a good read that provides insight into the final days of the Civil War but I do not agree with the author's hypothesis.
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Summary: Great Book, Very Interesting
Review: This author did something very interesting. He took a look at a number of very important events with the end of the Civil War and wrote a book talking about the month that the events all took place in. He may be stretching the point that this is the one-month that was the deathblow to the south, but overall he provides an interesting argument. I think the most interesting parts of the book for me were the descriptions of the battles that were fought, how they took place and the actual numbers involved. The author does a very good job of describing the violence of the battles without becoming overly graphic in his descriptions. He also does a good job in documenting the issues that were facing the South during this period of time (he was trying to state this was there last hope so it may be a little bias). It painted a very bleak picture for the Confederates. We also get a good amount of insight into the major plays of the time from Lincoln to Grant, Davis to Jackson. There are facts here that are very interesting and the author draws our attention to a number of parallels of the main characters and the consequences to the overall situation. We also get some good detail on the assassination of Lincoln. Overall this is a well-written and detailed book that will hold your interest through to the end. It reads very smoothly and is exciting at times. If you are interested in American history this may be one of the books you need to read.
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