The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning opus is by now the standard one-volume treatment of the Civil War. Encyclopedic in scope, it synthesizes political and military history into a sweeping narrative of America's national epic, one that paints the North's victory as the triumph of a "revolutionary future" of "competitive, egalitarian, free-labor capitalism" over the tradition-bound and hierarchical society of the South. This new edition eliminates the footnotes and trims a fifth of the text to make way for color maps of major battles and campaigns and hundreds of photographs, cartoons and artist's depictions from the period. McPherson's accompanying captions sometimes overdo the characterological readings (in one portrait of a Confederate general we can supposedly "almost see Breckinridge's handlebar mustache twitching in anger"), but they provide interesting biographical background as well as piquant details and an indelible period feel. Serious Civil War buffs will delight in this magisterial treatment. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

In this impressive book, famed Civil War historian McPherson revises his Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom, reducing the text by one-fifth in order to add a stunning array of over 700 illustrations from the Civil War era-photographs, cartoons, lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, and paintings-that give new life to an already vivid, engrossing history. McPherson's text is a condensation rather than a reconsideration of his earlier work, but his original arguments stand up well even in the face of new scholarship on war, politics, and ideology because in the original he had anticipated much of that scholarship. Here, real value is added not only by the illustrations, which are neatly woven into the narrative, but also by the copious captions (which add up to some 35,000 words), which introduce new material and expand on subjects sometimes lightly touched in the original. Only the lack of a modern bibliographical essay mars McPherson's otherwise monumental achievement. One can smell the sweat and sulfur from McPherson's riveting narrative and can see the dangerous age as those who lived in it. Essential.-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.

In this impressive book, famed Civil War historian McPherson revises his Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom, reducing the text by one-fifth in order to add a stunning array of over 700 illustrations from the Civil War era-photographs, cartoons, lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, and paintings-that give new life to an already vivid, engrossing history. McPherson's text is a condensation rather than a reconsideration of his earlier work, but his original arguments stand up well even in the face of new scholarship on war, politics, and ideology because in the original he had anticipated much of that scholarship. Here, real value is added not only by the illustrations, which are neatly woven into the narrative, but also by the copious captions (which add up to some 35,000 words), which introduce new material and expand on subjects sometimes lightly touched in the original. Only the lack of a modern bibliographical essay mars McPherson's otherwise monumental achievement. One can smell the sweat and sulfur from McPherson's riveting narrative and can see the dangerous age as those who lived in it. Essential.-Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning opus is by now the standard one-volume treatment of the Civil War. Encyclopedic in scope, it synthesizes political and military history into a sweeping narrative of America's national epic, one that paints the North's victory as the triumph of a "revolutionary future" of "competitive, egalitarian, free-labor capitalism" over the tradition-bound and hierarchical society of the South. This new edition eliminates the footnotes and trims a fifth of the text to make way for color maps of major battles and campaigns and hundreds of photographs, cartoons and artist's depictions from the period. McPherson's accompanying captions sometimes overdo the characterological readings (in one portrait of a Confederate general we can supposedly "almost see Breckinridge's handlebar mustache twitching in anger"), but they provide interesting biographical background as well as piquant details and an indelible period feel. Serious Civil War buffs will delight in this magisterial treatment. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.