An Illustrated History of the War Between the States
The American Civil War was the greatest war of the nineteenth century, the bloodiest, the most prolonged and the most wrenching for the nation caught up in it. Unforgettably captured by the recent invention of camera, it marked a cross-roads in American history, deploying new weapons, new standards in generalship, new strategies of destruction. Three million men fought and 600,00 lost their lives.
Many books have been published about this momentous conflict, but 'The Civil War' is arguably the best - and certainly the most beautiful. Originally conceived as a companion to the widely-praised BBC seven-part television series, it contains a full-scale narrative history of the war by Geoffrey C. Ward in collaboration with Ric Burns and Ken Burns, supplemented by four specially commissioned essays on different aspects of the war by distinguished historians: Don Fehrenbacher on the causes of the war; Barbara J. Fields on the emancipation of the slaves; James M. McPherson on the politics of the 1864 election; and C. Vann Woodward on the effects of the war on America's national identity. There is also an interview with Shelby Foote, author of the classic three-volume work 'the Civil War: A Narrative' (also available in Pimlico), talking in fascinating detail about the daily minutiae of wartime life on the battlefield and at home. Scattered throughout the book are dozens of passages drawn from contemporary letters, diaries, poems and faded newspaper clippings to give an authentic participant's eye view of the conflict.
More than 475 photographs, engravings and paintings, many hitherto unpublished, have been selected from eight archives across America and reproduced with great accuracy - largely in colour - to evoke the times and events and the people as never before. From the first shot fired upon Fort Sumter through all the terrible battles - Shiloh, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor and the rest - to the quiet that fell at last at Appomattox, the Civil War here comes to life.
