Writing the Civil War : The Quest to Understand

Rating:
Summary: An excellent primer
Review: "Writing the Civil War" is the best analysis of the historiography of the major topics researched by most Civil War scholars today. Every essay is written by a leader in the field of study covered in it. This allows the reader to look back from the leading edge of study. I found this book to be an excellent source for new ideas about how to look at the war, and its historiography, and hopefully it will improve my own writing on the Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent primer
Review: "Writing the Civil War" is the best analysis of the historiography of the major topics researched by most Civil War scholars today. Every essay is written by a leader in the field of study covered in it. This allows the reader to look back from the leading edge of study. I found this book to be an excellent source for new ideas about how to look at the war, and its historiography, and hopefully it will improve my own writing on the Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, up-to-date, diverse
Review: A well polished collection of essays on the schools of thought within a variety of American Civil War topics. Politics, economics, tactics, the role of women, blacks, and volunteers are covered by outlining the trends of the past 30 years in these fields and others. Read with Pressely's 'Americans Interpret Their Civil War' and Guelzo's 'Crisis of the American Republic' a solid foundation in Civil War historiography would be gained by the serious student of the American Civil War. 'Writing the Civil War' is written in such a fashion that a general familiarity with Civil War bibliography of the past 30 years is required; this book is probably not for the general undergraduate student or the Civil War military buff.