Thoughtful essays on the Civil War by one of its foremost
contemporary students. Princeton historian McPherson (Abraham
Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, 1990, etc.) takes a
synoptic view of the Civil War and its lessons. He traces, for
instance, the growth of the concept of "total war," involving
civilians and combatants alike, in the border-state guerrilla
operations that preceded the main war, when abolitionist and
slaveholder bands seemingly vied with each other to inflict the
greatest number of atrocities on innocents. He also charts the
evolution of the war from a conflict meant, on the federal side, to
restore the old Union into a war of republican virtues meant to
impress the cause of industrial democracy upon an agrarian
civilization. In discussing this change of purpose, he examines the
notion of "Southern exceptionalism" advanced by many other students
of the war, arguing that in many cases the commonalities between
South and North outweighed their regional differences, save that
"the North - along with a few countries in northwestern Europe -
hurtled forward eagerly toward a future of industrial capitalism
that many Southerners found distasteful if not frightening."
Occasionally, in an effort to make the Civil War meaningful to
modern readers, the historian makes anachronistic stretches:
"George Orwell need not have created the fictional world of 1984 to
describe Newspeak. He could have found it in the South Carolina of
1861." Still, McPherson is successful in explaining why popular
interest in the Civil War endures, and indeed why it should endure.
Fine historical writing, and required reading for both Civil War
buffs and scholars - divided audiences, as McPherson notes. (Kirkus
Reviews)
James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians
writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle
Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that
conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New
York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." Now, in
Drawn With the Sword, McPherson offers a series of thoughtful and
engaging essays on some of the most enduring questions of the Civil
War, written in the masterful prose that has become his trademark.
Filled with fresh interpretations, puncturing old myths and
challenging new ones, Drawn With the Sword explores such questions
as why the North won and why the South lost (emphasizing the role
of contingency in the Northern victory), whether Southern or
Northern aggression began the war, and who really freed the slaves,
Abraham Lincoln or the slaves themselves. McPherson offers
memorable portraits of the great leaders who people the landscape
of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant, struggling to write his memoirs
with the same courage and determination that marked his successes
on the battlefield; Robert E. Lee, a brilliant general and a true
gentleman, yet still a product of his time and place; and Abraham
Lincoln, the leader and orator whose mythical figure still looms
large over our cultural landscape. And McPherson discusses
often-ignored issues such as the development of the Civil War into
a modern "total war" against both soldiers and civilians, and the
international impact of the American Civil War in advancing the
cause of republicanism and democracy in countries from Brazil and
Cuba to France and England. Of special interest is the final essay,
entitled "What's the Matter With History?," a trenchant critique of
the field of history today, which McPherson describes here as "more
and more about less and less." He writes that professional
historians have abandoned narrative history written for the greater
audience of educated general readers in favor of impenetrable tomes
on minor historical details which serve only to edify other
academics, thus leaving the historical education of the general
public to films and television programs such as Glory and Ken
Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War.
Each essay in Drawn With the Sword reveals McPherson's own profound
knowledge of the Civil War and of the controversies among
historians, presenting all sides in clear and lucid prose and
concluding with his own measured and eloquent opinions. Readers
will rejoice that McPherson has once again proven by example that
history can be both accurate and interesting, informative and
well-written. Mark Twain wrote that the Civil War "wrought so
profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence
cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In Drawn
With the Sword, McPherson gracefully and brilliantly illuminates
this momentous conflict.
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