Rating: 
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY WORK OF HISTORY AND LITERATURE
Review: I have yet to finish reading this marathon work, but I can honestly say that it is the greatest work of historical literature that I have yet read.Firstly, the author shows an encyclopaedic grasp of the facts of history together with an intuitive and almost uncanny sense of their significance in relation to the unfolding story. Secondly, his literary skills give even his vast factual knowledge a run for their money. This is no mere recitative of dry facts, but a perfectly paced and dramatically structured narrative, in which different literary genres such as biography and story-telling are seamlessly interwoven. Thirdly, he has a rare gift for being judgmental without being partisan. He is not afraid to find good and bad on either side of the conflict; in fact he is not even afraid to find a cocktail of good and bad in individuals whom history slots
entirely into one moral category or the other. Fourthly (and this is more subjective), this is so enjoyable as a read. The author's own exuberant fascination with the period, and the intensity of his admiration or scorn for the various personages involved on either side of the conflict, are communicated to the reader. The three volumes of this 'magnum opus' are available separately, but this three-volume boxed edition is the way to own it. I don't know if the three books were published sequentially or simultaneously, but in a very real sense we are talking about a single coherent work in three volumes. If you know nothing at all about the Civil War, you could find this sheer size of this work a bit daunting; more seriously, you could lose the bigger picture in the sheer wealth of fascinating detail. In that case, James McPherson's extraordinarily brilliant overview ("The Battle Cry of Freedom") could be a better place to start. However, if you want something really substantial to keep you engrossed on that coast-to-coast wagon-train journey, this is unreservedly recommended for beginner or Civil War enthusiast alike.
Rating:
Summary: excellent civil war military history
Review: I recommend Mr. Foote's unrivaled military history of the Civil War, or as I call it, "The War for American Slavery." Furthermore, as I believe we should investigate all available aspects regarding topics of interest, and seeing as Foote's trilogy doesn't touch on the peculiar instition of slavery itself...from the slave's perspective, I also recommend Yuval Taylor's "I Was Born a Slave." This two volume collection of slave narratives lays bare the emotional CORE of an issue that led to the awful exchange of arms Foote detailed. "Slave Narratives," by William Andrews, is also good. If a big anthology of slave narratives isn't for you, try a few individual slave narratives. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs wrote fascinating, and relatively short, narratives. Be sure to peruse the slave narratives BEFORE reading a military history of the war itself. This gives one the proper perspective concerning a war fought over the right to keep humans as chattel slaves. After your slave narrative, and for an in-depth political history of the time leading up to The War for American Slavery, I suggest David Morris Potter's "The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861." Happy reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: I had a great time reading this, but found it somewhat anti-Union, which was understandable since it was written by a southerner. Foote's bias was evident right from the start when he described Davis as the most intelligent man in the senate, and as an aristocrat etc and described lincoln as an ape. all three volumes are rife with other examples. Despite the bias, it was still a great read and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Civil War Narrative
Review: What can be said about this narrative that hasn't already been said? This is the most comprehensive history of the Civil War that I have ever seen. Mr. Foote goes step by step through the war as it occurred in every part of the U.S. He not only gives details of the specific battles but also the reactions of the respective governments involved.
Foote does an excellent job of describing the circumstances in the Confederate government during the war. Alot of Civil War histories focus on President Lincoln but Mr. Foote tries to show what was happening on the Confederate side. It is amazing how much history and detail that is in these volumes. In the area where I live there were no major battles of any kind, just a Federal occupation early in the war by U.S. Grant and a few calvary raids a few years later by N.B. Forrest. These events were not significant to any battle or in the grand scheme of the war but they were included in these volumes. The amount of research and detail involved in writing these books is staggering and the story is told in a very interesting way.
This is a must read for any Civil War enthusiast.
Rating: 
Summary: Where are the African Americans?
Review: Having ploughed to the end of volume 2 at more than 1,000 pages, I asked myself this question: where are the blacks in this narrative? If you like a book about the Civil War without even a glance at slavery, then these volumes are for you.
Rating:
Summary: The Best and most Comprehensive Civil War Books Ever!!!!
Review: I have to say that personally what Shelby Foote has done in these magnificent books, could never be duplicated. You could not claim to be an expert, a buff, or a reenactor before reading these books. It took the Union and Confedrates 4 long years to fight the civil war, it took shelby 20 to write, not passing up the slightest detail. The way he pays attention to the western theater of war rather than getting a case of virginiatis is incredible. Sure the Southern Generals are shown in a more sympathetic light but he grew up in the yazoo mississippi delta, what do you expect. As for his lack of portraing slavery I think on the cover of the book the title is The Civil WAR a Narrative, not the story of slavery
Rating:
Summary: The central event in American history magnificently told
Review: Although there are many, many great books on the Civil War, and many who can lay claim to being greater historians of that conflict, Shelby Foote can lay claim to having recounted the greatest single event in American history better than anyone. They key to this work is the subtitle: a NARRATIVE history. While he does engage in insightful analysis of the causes of the war and of the central events and individuals in it, his primary task is to tell the history of the conflict as dramatically and as accurately as possible while remaining responsible as a historian. On one level, Foote might have been somewhat of a surprise to write such a fabulous work. At the time of the writing, he was known primarily as a novelist, not as a historian. In this he resembles Bernard DeVoto, who while primarily a novelist and literary critic, wrote three great historical works to cap his career as a writer. What sets Foote apart from other writers on the Civil War is precisely his gifts as a novelist. THE CIVIL WAR is, as Foote tells it, the Great American Novel. If he was constrained by the events of history as to how the story would unfold, he nonetheless manages to make every scene and character come vividly alive. Although a Southerner with an acute sense of his region's history, Foote provides a tremendously balanced recounting of the conflict. If he is sympathetic and effective in writing about such Southern heroes as Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Robert E. Lee, he is equally as capable when writing of Lincoln, Sherman, and Grant. While the South had the more interesting set of characters in the War, the North did have the central figure in Lincoln, and there are few better accounts of Lincoln's genius and his importance than Foote's. Indeed, while Lee and Jackson and Forrest may emerge in the books as the great military leaders of the war, Lincoln emerges as the War's greatest genius, the one whose vision and force of will led it to an inevitable conclusion. Throughout the work, Foote excels in writing about the myriad of individuals comprising the cast of characters of the conflict. Foote also excels in writing about the great battles of the war. So often, writers attempt to write about a battle, only to be immersed in the fog of war. Foote dispels the fog, only to reveal the events in marvelous clarity. No one writer writes so well about so many battles. His accounts of Jackson's Shenandoah campaign, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, Fredricksburg, Antietam, Gettysburg, and a host of other battles are absolutely first rate. Many, many people know the reputation of THE CIVIL WAR, know how highly it is regarded, and yet hesitate to read it because of its length. Yes, it is long. But few long books so completely repay the effort. If you don't understand the Civil War, you don't understand America. As Foote put it so brilliantly on Ken Burns's Civil War series (a series that made Foote known beyond the previous readers of his novels and this set), the Civil War is the central event in American history; it is what made us a country. And no one tells this story so capably and brilliantly as Foote. The story, to be told correctly, requires a work this long to tell it properly. Even as brilliant a one-volume history as James MacPherson's BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM fails to do as good a job simply because he doesn't have the space to deal as exhaustively with the story as Foote does. If I had to recommend only one work on the Civil War, it would be Foote's magnificent narrative. Read this not merely because it is a crucial story marvelously told, but because it is a story with which all Americans and any non-American wanting to understand America must be familiar.
Rating:
Summary: Read Here Now
Review: If you like American History and haven't read this book, this is a very good day for you. Having found out about Shelby Foote, lo, some years ago when the Ken Burns series first aired, I bought the middle book of the series, thinking "Skip the prologue, I wanna sink my teeth into the good stuff". I read that one and was smitten. My sense of sequence was skewed somewhat from then on, however. I followed it up with the third book and, ravenously, just had to read the beginning. That was the summer of '95, I think. To write a review of these books is like Lincoln dedicating Gettsburg. To say that Mr Foote is a good storyteller would not only be an understatement, it would be like calling a three-legged perenial piping plover a bird. This marvelous and hard-working writer takes an immense subject, for so many years treated clinicly and episodicly, and leads the reader on a great national adventure, finally tragic. Not fictionalized, the men and women come to life by clear, intimate description of personality, circumstance(political or otherwise) and action. Not a wasted word here. We travel back in time to a not wholely innocent place and time where the players have all the same traits of all us mortals, only age-appropriate. The blending and melding of these tragic, history-changing events is so adeptly handled by Shelby's pen as too appear effortless as he weaves a fine patchwork from the point of view of all the majors and minors from the skulking deserter or "shabby" profiteer to the heros' of our nation reclamation, so sad for the proud South and bittersweet for the North . Biased towards neither side. Humourous and light-hearted with a subtle approving wink. Keeping a sense of the sorrow and tragedy and immense national loss. To have handled this subject in the first place, was an act of bravery in itself. To have done it so adeptly is truly a legacy and a gift to all of us.
Looking around for something to read recently, I just happened to pick up book 2 again and started having at it. I pulled myself up short and thought, "Maybe I should do this right, right now". I am about to re-fight Cancerlorsville, Stonewall's last battle. Wish me luck.
More Maps Please. And while you at it, could you write a little follow-up titled, perhaps, Reconstruction? Thank you, Mr. Foote. Colter Rule NYC
Rating:
Summary: A Magnificient Epic
Review: Shelby Foote is a novelist and he brings the skills of a good writer to his three volume history of the Civil War. He tells a good story with a high standard of accuracy. I doubt that anyone has ever written a better account of the most-written about event in American history. Two facts about Foote's history. First, the focus is on the South. Foote spends more time on Jefferson Davis than he does on Abraham Lincoln. The Southern generals are more lovingly drawn than the northerners. Secondly, Foote gives more space than the typical historian to the war in the West, as befits his own ancestry as a Mississipian. Vicksburg gets almost equal time with Gettysburg and Foote avoids the Virginia-itis of so many Civil War historians. The long chapter on Gettysburg is considered by many to be the centerpiece of the three volumes, but I keep returning to Foote's tale of the masterful Second Manassas campaign, pages 585-649, Volume I. The most regrettable omission of the book is the short shrift Foote gives to the assault by Negro troops on Fort Wagner, South Carolina (page 697-698, Volume 2). (See the movie "Glory.") Surely, this battle deserves more attention for its human interest quality, if not its military significance. The most fascinating character is the "Wizard of the Saddle," Nathan Bedford Forrest. The South didn't want to win badly enough to give Forrest, an evil genius, a major command until late in the war. One wonders what might have happened if he had been in command at Perryville or Vicksburg. This is a book that will always occupy a prominent place on my bookshelf. My only regret is that it isn't longer. I usually complain about books being too long, but 3,000 pages isn't enough to tell the tale of the Civil War. More! More!
Rating:
Summary: The Civil War: A Narrative:
Review: Shelby Foote has done an excellent job in covering the Civil War. Years ago this was the first set of books that I had read on the subject. His writting so facinated me that I now have over 60 books on the war. He turned me into a Civil War buff, but I'm not complaining. A deffinate must read!
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