Or I thought it might be about the slaves' cry for freedom but they are only mentioned in passing. Sounds good, doesen't it? Yet it doesn't reflect what you get in the book! I thought the battle cry would refer to the Southern soldiers' famous battle cry but it doesn't really, at least not explicitly. I think McPherson or the publisher realized that the book didn't work and decided to get people to read it by giving it a fancy title: Battle Cry of Freedom. Why did it happen? I wanted to know what the long-term consequences of the Civil War were but Battle Cry of Freedom doesn't do that because - as said - it runs out of steam. I wanted to know what it was really like as a soldier, citizen during the Civil War. Some of it is very good, but it always a bit on the surface, like you are somewhere near the battles but not in them. Then it follows the war up and down the country, etc. The book starts off with an incredible overview of life in American before the Civil War without actually telling us why this is important. The book bites off more than it can chew and then - as a consequence - runs out of steam at the end. In my opinion, McPherson ends up telling us too much and, at the same time, very little. For this feat alone, the book deserves at least 3 stars.Īnd yet, I couldn't help feeling, after reading the book, that I still didn't really know what it must have been like to fight and live in American during the Civil War. It's not so much a narrative of the Civil War as a description of a whole nation during the Civil War years, before it and - very briefly - after it. How he ever dug up so much information and put it in one book defies my imagination and has my greatest respect. McPherson's broad canvas of the Civil War is mind-boggling. It's depth and scope are astonishing but - at the same time - and ironically, the very things that make it amazing end up being its downfall. Probably the best single-volume history of America's Civil War yet written ― Economist Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende McPherson has fresh approaches to the war's background, the four years of struggle and the aftermath ― Washington Post Book World McPherson wears with equal ease the hats of biographer, economist, sociologist and military historian. He has written what will surely become the standard one-volume history of the great conflict which forged America as a united nation ― Independent Absolutely brilliant. historical writing of the highest order ― The New York Times A distinguished contribution to American history. Omitting nothing important, whether military, political or economic, he yet manages to make everything he touches drive the narrative forward. Above all, everything is in a living relationship with everything else. The definitive study, meticulous in its scholarship and compulsive in its readability ― Financial Times McPherson is wonderfully lucid. The whole panorama of the Civil War is captured in these pages, from the military campaign, which is described with vividness, immediacy, a grasp of strategy and logistics, and a keen awareness of the military leaders and the common soldiers involved, to its political and social aspects. With a broad historical sweep, it traces the heightening sectional conflict of the 1850s: the growing estrangement of the South and its impassioned defence of slavery the formation of the Republican Party in the North, with its increasing opposition to slavery and the struggle over territorial expansion, with its accompanying social tensions and economic expansion. This is magic' The New York Times This book covers one of the most turbulent periods of the USA's history, from the Mexican War in 1848 to the end of the Civil War in 1865. the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across. It is a masterful work' New York Review of Books ' Compellingly readable. that effectively integrates in one volume social, political and military events from the immediate aftermath of the Mexican War through the sectional strife of the 1850s, the secession movement, and the Civil War. It will shock you for what it tells you about politics in America today.' Richard Ford ' A remarkably wide-ranging synthesis of the history of the 1850s and the Civil War. It will open your eyes about race history in America. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History 'Read it.
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