SHELBY FOOTE'S CIVIL WAR TRILOGY REVIEWED BY JOHN CHUCKMAN

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	• The Civil War: A Narrative (3 Vol. Set) Shelby Foote Vintage, 1986 average customer review:based on 137 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Essential

This is the essential set for all Civil War history buffs. Foote's narrative style is interesting and he never wavers from exacting detail in his historical analysis. Many reviews give excellent detail about this exhaustive set, so I add only this: For any history buff, this is the essential library addition.

An Epic Telling of an Epic Tale

Shelby Foote, made famous as the narrator of Ken Burns' PBS series, has written an epic tale of our nation's most horrid war in "The Civil War: A Narrative." His characters come so alive that you would think that he's making them up, if you didn't know that these were real people with real foibles and assets. Foote is a story teller, but not in the historical fiction style of the Shaaras. His is the time-honored historical method of uncovering and exposing the real people who walked before us and allowing us to hear their voices still speaking to us.

As other reviewers have noted, though lengthy, Foote's approach is user-friendly for the "lay student" of the Civil War. Staunch historians would likely prefer two Pulitzer Prize winning treatments. For a one volume approach, James M. McPherson's, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era," is a true landmark chronicle of the central event in the life of the nation. Another preeminent three volume set (also now packaged in one book) is Bruce Catton's "Civil War" ("Mr. Lincoln's Army," "Glory Road," and "A Stillness at Appomattox."

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of, "Martin Luther's Pastoral Care," "Soul Physicians," Spiritual Friends," and the forthcoming "Sacred Companions: A History of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."

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SHELBY FOOTE'S CIVIL WAR TRILOGY REVIEWED BY JOHN CHUCKMAN

Shelby Foote's trilogy of the American Civil War has been called America's Iliad and Odyssey, and in some ways it is an apt comparison.

The Trojan War certainly held a comparable place for ancient Greeks as America's Civil War holds for contemporary Americans. I've always wondered why this should be so.

I think there are several major reasons. First, the anvil of the Civil War is where America's rise to world power is hammered out. Lincoln, in the long-term view, is less the Patriarch who frees slaves than he is the successful Corporate Lawyer who forges the nation into a feared industrial and military power. The Civil War is revolutionary for America's status, just as the Great War marked the beginning of the decline for Great Britain.

Second, in a country that has never really quite experienced the horrors of war in the modern era (American deaths for example in World War Two were a little more than half of one-percent of the fifty million lives total, and losses in the First War were almost insignificant out of total losses), the Civil War stands as America's time of great sacrifice and bloodshed.

There is also the myth and color around the nature of the Old South, stuff about gentlemen, honor, and manliness. Southerners certainly accepted this dreamy view, at least the small number with money, while the other dirt-poor farmers were bound to them through dread of Blacks and the feared effects of slavery's end. Northerners, too, came to accept the colorful myths, and many still do. Southern culture of course was based on slavery, and it was a brutal culture in many aspects, but America has never really come to grips with slavery in its history, and the myths are appealing.

Mr. Foote collected some wonderful, colorful anecdotes about the daring deeds or marvelous escapes of leading characters in his long narrative. The telling of these tales does remind one of Homer's various intense scenes with leading characters preparing for or engaging in combat. These come like delightful arias in a long opera.

Certainly, Mr. Foote has captured the great panorama of the Civil War, at least in its military aspects. Some might think the three-thousand pages of narrative a bit excessive, but fans of the Civil War and those who like a good yarn that lasts and lasts will greatly enjoy the books.

Comparisons with Homer may be taken too far. Homer was a poet. Shelby Foote's prose are sturdy and workman-like.

Mr. Foote does not deal with all political, social, and economic dimensions of the Civil War, but then that isn't his job, just as it wasn't Homer's.

This raises a possible philosophical criticism of the work. To a certain extent, with the work's color and sweep and bold deeds, Mr. Foote could be charged somewhat with helping to perpetuate the myths of the Old South, but this is not a point I would want to insist on because those who want to fully understand the Civil War must read other books. This one does just what it sets out to do.

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God Bless You Shelby Foote.

What can you say about this trilogy? The summer that I turned twenty, which is more years ago than I would like to admit, I took two months before the beginning of the Fall College semester, and read them, cover to cover. It was, and remains, an incredible experience. No other writer, IMHO, comes close to Foote, except for possibly Robert Caro, except the latter's work is not nearly as heroic. With Foote, you have a real sense of the great experience that this country went through in those terrible years of our Civil War. Before Foote, I don't think I was able to grasp the magnificence of Grant's Vicksburg Campaign, or the sheer bloodyness of the 1864 Virginia campaign. Really an incredible read, just be prepared to invest a great deal of time, but hey- missing a month or three of watching television in the evenings certainly is worth it!
thanks,

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A must read for anyone interested in the Civil War

The author brings in so many details, but puts these details very effectively together to keep the story moving along. The author uses a language which seems natural to the age and writes of the personalities with genuine admiration and affection as if they had been to dinner with him on Sunday.

Shelby Foote's interesting writing style of an interesting yet tragic event in our history is a remarkable accomplishment. Every American should have these books as part of their home library.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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