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"A treasure for the eye and mind" ( The New York Times ) about the greatest war in American history--and a magnificent companion volume to the celebrated PBS television series by one of our most treasured filmmakers. * With more than 500 illustrations: rare Civil War photographs--many never before published--as well as paintings, lithographs, and maps reproduced in full color.

It was the greatest war in American history. It was waged in 10,000 places--from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it and more than 600,000 men died in it. Not only the immensity of the cataclysm but the new weapons, the new standards of generalship, and the new strategies of destruction--together with the birth of photography--were to make the Civil War an event present ever since in the American consciousness. Thousands of books have been written about it. Yet there has never been a history of the Civil War quite like this one.

A wealth of documentary illustrations and a narrative alive with original and energetic scholarship combine to present both the grand sweep of events and the minutest of human details. Here are the crucial events of the war: the firing of the first shots at Fort Sumter; the battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; the siege of Vicksburg; Sherman's dramatic march to the sea; the surrender at Appomattox. Here are the superb portraits of the key figures: Abraham Lincoln, claiming for the presidency almost autocratic power in order to preserve the Union; the austere Jefferson Davis, whose government disappeared almost before it could be formed; Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, seasoned generals of fierce brilliance and reckless determination. Here is the America in which the war was fought: The Civil War is not simply the story of great battles and great generals; it is also an elaborate portrait of the American people caught up in the turbulence of the times.

An additional resonance is provided by four essays by prominent Civil War historians, and Shelby Foote talks to filmmaker Ken Burns about wartime life on the battlefield and at home.

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Library Journal Review

Filled with vignettes of generals, soldiers, and women on the home front, and spiced by personal accounts of battles and camp life, this book presents the war as the central defining event of American history and of the lives of those Americans caught up in it. In four separate, additional essays, professional historians briefly discuss the causes of the war, emancipation, the politics of the war, and its long-term meaning. Ward's running narrative will cause scholars to wince at his occasional hyperbole, but readers will thrill to his brisk prose, ironic sense, and eye for detail--and to the 500+ photographs studding the volume (some startling, several never before published). Intended as the companion to a nine-part PBS-TV series on the Civil War, this compelling work should command its own large audience. No book can fully capture the intensity of the war, but this volume approaches it. Highly recommended for public and college libraries. BOMC main selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/90.--Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Companion volume to a forthcoming PBS series, this is an extraordinary collection of photos, engravings and paintings, many published for the first time, conveying military and political events of the Civil War, accompanied by a pungent text that avoids sentimentality in depicting ``the most horrible, necessary, intimate, acrimonious, mean-spirited, and heroic'' war in our history. Typical illustrations include a photo of a pile of amputated feet, four pages of clinical portraits of maimed soldiers, photos of nurses at work in hospitals and rare studio portraits of slaves among some 500 illustrations which, in combination with the text, present a memorable record of the War Between the States. The book, assembled by Ward, author of A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt , and historians Ken and Ric Burns, also includes original essays by distinguished historians James M. McPherson and C. Vann Woodward among others, and an edifying interview with historian Shelby Foote. BOMC main selection. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

YA-- A glowing companion volume to the celebrated PBS television series that is informative and poignant. After exhausting research in museums, libraries, and newspapers, 475 images were selected to show readers what people, places, and events looked like during this crisis that shook the foundation of American civilization. The text that accompanies these illustrations is often the voices of the men and women who lived it. Extensive use of diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts bring the world of the 1860s to life. Five Civil War historians provide essays that add a third dimension to this fascinating work. A selected bibliography that includes some of the most noted works on the Civil War and a complete index are included. The book can be used as a companion to the PBS series or as a valuable resource on its own. It should be included in all Civil War collections.--Dolores M. Steinhauer, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Geoffrey C. Ward is an author, historian, and screenwriter. He has written for numerous documentary films, and has won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.