Rating: 
Summary: The South was Right
Review: I found the book to be thought provoking. Yes, it flies in the face of what we have all been taught in high school history classes, and blasphemes an American President who is held in heroic esteme, but it gives good information. I believe the Kennedys have given voice to a whole nation of people who have been maligned and treated as ignorant because they had a different belief system than the current, overly PC society in which we now live. Reading this book influenced me to read further and find what truths and half truths really exist on both sides of Civil War History.
Southern society was ignorant and closed minded? Really? Anymore than those who say this book is perpetrating a great lie in saying Licoln was not the saintly icon he as become with the proliferation of Northern views of history?
I believe any book that causes debate and introspection is a worthwhile read--and this book definately causes the reader to question the one sided history we have been spoon fed all our lives.
I enjoyed this book. And I believe much of the information is valid. If the South was so wrong, and the North was so right, Why did the nation, as a whole, take so long in providing equal rights to all men (and much later, women)?
Rating: 
Summary: just one thought...
Review: I have to admit to having not read this book, but would still like to just offer one or two little thoughts...As an American Studies major (and English to boot...), I find it incredible that there are still some people who believe the Civil Was was fought over slavery alone, more specifically the "right" or "wrong" of slavery. In my very first year studying American history I was taught that the Civil War had much more to do with states rights and the Northern fear that an expanse of slave states would increase the power of the slaveowning states in government. We were told (and I don't know how true this is...) that Robert E.Lee, despite his anti-slave leanings, fought for the South because ultimately he felt his commitment was to his State and not to the Federal govmt., that he should fight for the rights his grandfather before him had fought for in the Revolution. To see this issue as being merely to do with the kind of "slavery equals sin" position is to commit a major error; this kind of simplistic view renders any kind of discussion of the Civil War extremely politicly correct, that is, to defend the South's right to secede is to be seen to defend slavery as an institution, to be "racist". I find this attitude to be ignorant, not only of the Civil War, but of the entire slave issue, as it ignores the vast complexity of slavery in North America. Whilst I would disagree with your reviewer who claimed that African-Americans were better off as slaves than they would be as freemen in Africa, one still needs to read a work such as Ira Berlin's "Many Thousands Gone" to best understand the vast complexity of slavery and how the institution changed and differed over time and through regions; that our stereotype of antebellum slavery is taken from only one particular time and space (the post-Revolutionary period of the Low-Country), that in reality slaves "enjoyed" a number of rights and engaged with their masters in a complex series of negotiations as to their position. It is not enough simply to say that "slavery was a sin" and that defenders of the South's right to secede are "racist", just as the economic-social-political complexity of the Revolution cannot be explained simply through saying the British were bastards and that to defend them is to make one a rabid imperialist...in any case, as you will see in Berlin, the issue of slavery is not simply a "race" issue, it is also incredibly bound up in ideas of "class" oppression; it is only in the last years of the "peculiar institution" that slaveholders begin equating race with class. Also, in the author's review of his book, he says that he is not a "racist" but sees the culture of the South (and all of North America) as being influenced as much by African-Americans as by Europeans, that there was a great deal of inter-cultural mixing occuring; this is the same position which noted scholars such as Eugene Genovese and Ira Berlin posit and cannot be denied. I wouldn't like to go so far as to say that "The South was Right!" as I feel that, yes, when it comes down to it, slavery WAS a sin and no amount of comparative analysis with other slave-societies can clean away the essential truth that slavery equals one class's denial of the freedoms of another class. However, I also do not feel that it is right to try and reduce the complexities of slavery and the Civil War to the issue of slavery's "rightness" or "wrongness".p
Rating:
Summary: Good but boring.
Review: I found this book to be loaded with fact. it was not interesting at all. I am very into southern activism and am joining the SCV (sons of confederate veterans) as soon as i get my information. I really like politics too, but this book has some good facts it was just hard to read. I am an excellent reader by most standards and this book was so boring that i couldn't read more than 50 pages at a time.. It was good but poorly presented i thought and just a bunch of facts thrown at you with no writing or creativity. Good book if you want AMMO vs. yankees or NAACP, but boring. worth the read tho.
Rating: 
Summary: The authors are more biased than the Yankees they abhore
Review: Donny Kennedy and James Kennedy sure do know how to write selective history. Despite the low rating I give this book, I do hope that most Civil War buffs will read it as it does force people to justify their views. The authors claim that most Civil War history is "propoganda" written by victorious Yankees. Yet, the most widely read military history history of the war was written by Shelby Foote, a true Southerner from Memphis. Two movies on the AFI top 100, Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind, present a generally pro-southern view of the war. Right after the war, E.A. Pollard wrote an incredibly biased history called The Lost Cause which was not banned by the Yankees and is still in the bookstores today. In addition, you can find the papers of Jefferson Davis in any halfway decent college library as well as many other pro-southern accounts of the conflict. This book is not nearly as groundbreaking as the authors have us believe. In addition, I completely disagree with their views on Secession. The states clearly relinquished their sovereignty by ratifying the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence defined the characteristics of free and sovereign states: the power to levy war, declare peace, contract alliances, and establish commerce. The states are prohibited from each of these activities by Article IV of the Constitution. Article VI of the Constitution, the supremacy clause, states that no state law may conflict with a Federal law. It simply does not make sense to give states the power to secede when they disagree with national policy. Not a single Southern right was usurped by the Federal government in 1860. That the authors would even try and defend slavery is laughable. Some masters were benign, others were not. Yes, in some instances, I am sure slavery was more pleasant than factory work, but at least workers received some capital in exchange for their labor. The South clearly seceded to protect slavery. Simply look at the Declaration of Causes, which were corollaries to the ordinances of Secession written by South Carolina, Georgia, and two other states which I don't remember. In addition, in the ordinances of secession, Southern states refer to their collective group as the "slaveholding states". The fact is, 25% of all Southern families owned slaves. Slaves constituted 50% of the Southern population, and were a majority of the population in South Carolina. Anybody who says that slavery was not central to the Southern lifestyle is simply ignoring history. The authors describe the repressive measures of the Lincoln government dealing with dissidents, but they completely ignore the plight of Unionists in East Tennessee and West Virginia. The fact is, the South could not fully mobilize its supposedly loyal male population without conscription. Opposition to the war up North has been well documented, but historians have under-stated the amount of Southern white men who became disillusioned with the war effort, particularly after the Conscription law first allowed Plantation owners and anyone who owned 20 slaves to stay home. Perhaps the most inaccurate argument made by the authors concerns the blacks who fought for the Confederacy. Unfortunately, this myth is still perpetuated today. While a few blacks probably did fight with their masters, the practice was outlawed by the South until March of 1865, when blacks in Richmond were marched to the front at the point of the bayonet against their will and never saw any real fighting. General Patrick Cleyborne was ostricized in January of 1864 when he dared suggest arming the slaves. Most of the slaves that revisionists tell us were "soldiers" were really cooks or laborers working for the army. These men could hardly be described as fighting for the cause. In conclusion, the authors spread just as much misinfo as high school textbooks do. Was the North right in every respect? Certainly not, as I have major problems with Sherman's March, but the North's moral shortcomings do not elevate the South. Mike Gelfand
Rating: 
Summary: Kennedy's and their works
Review: I found this book very interesting and learned several things about the South and North that I would not have known if I had not read it.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in the debates of North vs. South today.
Couldnt put it down. Hope the Kennedy's keep up the good work!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A coffee table book....if you live in a trailer park.
Review: I got about 75 pages into this mess and stopped reading it. This author obviously has a big chip on his shoulder because he can't seem to accept that the confederacy was an abomination in our nation's history. He seems to point out every flaw with the north while giving the south a complete pass and making excuses for the Confederacy's greed and arrogance. Read this only if you like Science Fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Ignorance
Review: I have not yet read this book. I would, however, like to comment on some of the reviewers. I am amused by some of the inflammatory comments made about the intelligence and/or education of the authors and other reviewers. I suggest that if you intend to degrade someone's intelligence, first make sure you are able to write English with proper subject/verb agreement. Also check your capitalization and punctuation. Quote from reviewer:
"these to men who wrote this book have got to be the biggest dumbasses to walk this side of the earth. yes some of the stuff in this book is true. like that there were many reasons for the civil war starting like taxes politics and many other factors which i will not bore you with." Once again I will say that I have not read the book but I have seen enough to know that the authors aren't so dumb as to butcher the English language. My advice once again: if you are going to criticize someone, at least APPEAR partially intelligent.
Rating:
Summary: Viewing a battlefield through a microscope
Review: The editors obviously cherrypick their facts with
vigor.
To answer just a couple of often-reiterated
factoids:
it's true that some Southern slaveowners
were free blacks. Does that make slavery
a color-blind institution? Depends. How
many of their slaves were white?
It's true that some free Southern blacks
volunteered for military service at the
beginning of hostilities; most famous instance,
the Louisiana Native Guards. Two questions:
how much combat did they see before the CSA military abandoned New Orleans, and what
did they do afterwards? Answers: none, and
joined the Union Army. Information the editors of this book no doubt
found inessential to their polemic. According to one well-established model for the
causes of the ACW/WBTS, the desire of Southern
politicans for expansion of slavery into the
territories was directly linked with their desire
to maintain numerical superiority/parity in the
Senate. Given the difference in immigration and birthrate patterns, the North was going to swamp
the South in the House of Representatives. In order
to hold on to the Senate, more slave states were
needed. But such rational, analytical historical
models are unsatisfying to the 'blood and earth'
crowd who romanticize Lost Causes and their noble
forebears.
Rating:
Summary: Why do you support this?
Review: Ummm...these guys are wrong. North was right. I was born and raised in the South, and well, the south was wrong. Why should the south break from the north? To have slaves? I'm sorry but slavery is wrong. Therefore any rational behind the south's motives were wrong, and besides the south was asking for it. They succeeded when the president said no, and the south attacked the north first, so where do these guys get off in supporting this loss cause anyway.
Rating:
Summary: The Temple of Lincoln
Review: This message is for the Pro-Union Pro-Lincoln Politically Correct Radical Liberals... As spin-doctoring is your major in politics, and as you clearly have a bias against AMERICA itself
during that time period... being arrogant to understand how slavery could have existed at all... Let's Review. Lincoln was
never the president, at all. He violated his office and should have been removed by the yankee congress. Seven departing states should be a clue to his uselessness. Secession was a condition of Virginia even joining the Union, in the beginning. It protected us against the dictatorship of mercantilist like that
attorney, Lincoln... Slavery was LEGAL. Yankees started the act and found it unprofitable TO THEM. Lincoln has a temple to himself, and we should rename it LINCOLN, DC since Jefferson and Washington have nothing whatever to do with it, any more...
Sherman, Sheridan and Grant were guilty of human rights violations that should have been condemned, except of the next seven presidents, six of them were high-ranking yankee officers.
I would rather be associated with a losing SOUTH, honor and all, than to have to justify one paragraph of a dictator's legacy
like Lincoln. As the English did the Scottish in Braveheart, so did their descendants play all this out again, over here... St Andrews Cross, and all... Lincoln got by with it, for a while, anyway... but his wretched self-righteous LIBERAL insanity continues with the party stealing the name DEMOCRAT from us, the true Conservatives. However, you LIBERALS may take due note!
You may rest assured that the inherent GUILT that you have is
very real. You got it from Providence for Mr. Lincoln's War!
The sins of the fathers passed down! Enjoy your "noble hand wringing" grief!!! With Abe, you're in good company! Until you
make reparations to the South, here, we shall forever be fighting for some put-upon Confederacy of peoples worldwide such as SOUTH KOREA, SOUTH VIETNAM, and KUWAIT, because of some centralist Union government of dictators who want to rule the world! It is Divine Justice that we are always fighting for these Confederates, and against their personal arrogant yankees!
Deo Vindice!
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