Gettysburg

Rating:
Summary: A clear, concise overview.
Review: Bruce Catton guides you carefully and clearly through the whole battle. His writing is concise, yet picturesque. The book was my constant companion while visiting the Gettysburg battlefield. The maps are excellent. Bruce Catton is an even-handed chronicler of this monumental event.

Rating:
Summary: The classic narrative historian does it again
Review: This is a slim, primarily narrative volume dealing with the battle of Gettysburg. It's full of great pictures (including some really gory photos)and maps. As usual, Catton writes beautifully, although his description of Pickett's Charge is a little understated for him. What this is not is seminal scholarship -- Catton's introduction, referring to the battle as "fated", is absurdly though endearingly positivist, and his analysis of the battle and its causes is quite basic. I think the book would be particularly well suited to the amateur or, as another reviewer suggested, to someone who has seen the battlefield as a tourist and wants to learn a little more about what happened there.