Sunday, January 01, 2006
An audiobook recommendation
, and I highly recommend it. The author is Bruce Catton, who is probably our most prolific Civil War historian, but it is Barrett Whitener's narration that puts this book over the top. His voice is somehow very evocative of the plain-spoken, steel-spined Americans who fought both sides of that terrible war. Anyway, if you go through life thinking that you ought to know more about the Civil War but wonder "where am I going to find the time?", this is the way to go.2 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Jan 01, 05:20:00 PM:
Catton's Civil War history is top-notch; I invested several dozen hours of lunchtimes on his Civil War trilogy some 20 years ago.
I especially liked the role of France in attempting to "broker peace" to the North American continent: enlisting the assistance of the British and Prussians to enforce a cease fire on the warring parties (Our duly constituted Union and the secessionist states, ie, the Confederacy) with an aim to brokering a peasce agreement (ie, recognition of permanent political separation of the United States of America)
Most publicly funded schools gloss over Licoln's brilliant countermove- demonstrating to the public in Europe that the United States was iexhorably opposed, by force of arms, to the existence and expansion of slavery on the North American continent. The Emancipation Proclimation freed no slaves, failed to abolish slavery in the slave states that did not seceed, but it made intervention by Europe into our Civil War politically impossible once the European public grasped its significance.
I wonder if George Bush's embrace of the Wolfowitz plan and Bernard Lewis' thesis of democratic Arab Isalamic culture will be similarly overlooked by most historians. It is certain that Bush's current troubles are remakably like Lincoln's. Winning democracy will not make you any friends.
By 
Cassandra, at
Mon Jan 02, 09:25:00 AM:
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to check this out. I get audio books for my husband since he spends so much time commuting. I'm a big civil war buff too strangely enough (not sure why - I got interested in it a few years back). I got him several books on the Revolutionary War this Christmas so this would be a nice follow-up.
