Live the Civil War... It's worth your time and effort

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	• The Civil War: A Narrative (3 Vol. Set) Shelby Foote Vintage, 1986 average customer review:based on 138 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nobody does it better!

Shelby Foote created a masterpiece that assured his own place in history. Who can't think of the mini-series without thinking of Foote? Well, this is the work that got him his place in The Civil War and deservedly so. Many books have been written about the civil war from the perspectives of its actors, but none have been so evenly treated, nor so thorough. Fifty years old, it is still a relevant work and worth owning, in any form.

The Narrative History of the Civil War

Shelby Foote may be best known to the average American for his wonderful commentary in Ken Burn's PBS documentary "The Civil War." Behind that commentary is Foote's absolutely superb history of that conflict. Like Bruce Catton, the other great writer of narrative history on the Civil War, Shelby Foote came to the historian's trade from another field. Foote was a successful novelist who brought his writing skills and his background as a son of the South and a veteran of WWII to the task of writing a centennial history of the Civil War. His approach is history as epic human drama, populated by real people who rose to enormous challenges in the midst of the great civil war that defined the kind of nation the United States has become.

Foote completed the last volume of his narrative history in 1974 and his scholarship has inevitably become dated with respect to some of the details. On the other hand, like Catton, he gets the big story and gets it right. Foote captures the larger themes behind the battles and the politics, and how the ebb and flow of those larger themes drove people and events. These volumes can easily be read as literature for their superb prose and insight into the people of that time and place.

This three volume set is highly recommended to the student of the Civil War and to the casual reader looking for a marvellous account of that great event.

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Engrossing

I listened to this on unabridged audiobook and maybe lost a little from the lack of maps, etc., but it is a impressive piece of work. To think what a labor of love this must have been for Foote, is incredible.

Probably the most common complaint about these books is that they're too friendly to the Southern cause. The might be some bias there, but that mostly takes the form of near worship of RE Lee and NB Forrest. Also makes a lot of US Grant's alcoholism. On the other hand, it is obvious that the author also had tremendous respect for Lincoln and Sherman is not quite the awful figure I'd also heard of growing up in the South.

If you're looking for a detailed account of the Civil War, this is a good one.

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Epic Literary and Historical Work

An amazing accomplishment, the work of the prime of Foote's life(it took him 20 years to write the three volumes). While many have cited Foote's favoring the South, actually reading the books reveals that the biggest thing here is giving equal weight to campaigns in "the West" (basically western Virginia to Texas), which campaigns have not received nearly the popular familiarty of "Grant vs Lee" in Virginia. While Foote does occasionally seem to favor the South, he is balanced in his reporting of folly, bravery, cowardice, luck, politics, tactics and strategies on BOTH sides. The extensive use of biographical background, correspondence and conversations makes the war real and the people human. I knew little about Grant and nothing about Jefferson Davis and many others before reading this work. Some of it I have now read twice and it is even more enjoyable and considerably easier to read a second time (Vicksburg, Gettysburg, or other "highlights"). A rich and rewarding reading experience!

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Live the Civil War... It's worth your time and effort

Even as an avid reader of US history, I'd read nothing about the Civil War before reading Foote's work. I was frankly intimidated by a topic that plenty of people spend their entire life studying. This spring, I finally tackled the Civil War and I jumped into the deep end by starting with Foote's 3-volume set. I couldn't be happier with my choice.

There is no doubt that this set requires quite a committment of time and energy, but the reward is huge. Foote's attention to detail and narrative style draw you into the Civil War in a way that would be otherwise impossible. You get to know the characters, you feel their frustration and elation along with them, you develop an appreciation of the scale and scope of the struggle for the soldiers and civilians in a terrible time for the United States.

The payoff is that you get to appreciate a few moments as if you were there: I cried when I read the Gettysburg Address, I felt the mutual esteem between Grant and Lee at Appomatox, I was dismayed by Lincoln's assassintation and its impact on the country, I was appalled by the treatment of Jefferson Davis after the war. You couldn't get this from a lesser or shorter account of the Civil War.

If you truly want to get a sense of the Civil War, look no further. This masterwork by Shelby Foote will put you into the War and you will never regret your investment.

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