Last week while talking to a friend who is a Civil War buff I realized how little I know about the (American) Civil War. So I thought this might be a good time to fight my own ignorance with a good book on the subject. Something that gives a good overview of the war and the political, social and economic climate. Any recommendations?
Some general works:
Battle Cry of Freedom - James McPherson
Civil War (Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road, A Stillness At Appomattox) - Bruce Catton
The Civil War: An American Iliad - Ralph Newman & Otto Eisenschiml
If you’ve got the time, check out Shelby Foote’s three volume The Civil War: A Narrative
I enjoyed Ken Burns’ The Civil War: An Illustrated History, which I read as I watched the DVD series. Very good basic background, lots of photos and diagrams, which helped me stay engaged.
This is what I was going to say. If you can check it out from your library, the Ken Burns series on the Civil War might be a way to get yourself “caught up” on that history. Foote is one of the main commentators, and is a true delight.
Catton and Foote are the giants of this crowded field, followed closely by McPherson.
To me, Catton’s works give a better sense of the overall course of things, and have some wonderfully poetic language. Catton understands and conveys the causes and the conflict.
Foote’s enormous trilogy is more in-depth. If you don’t get mired in the details, it has more anecdotes and really gives a feeling for the personalities involved. There’s a reason he calls it a Narrative.
McPherson is next on my list. 
Sailboat
Just ordered The Civil War: An Illustrated History from Half.com. Thanks to all.
The Bruce Catton trilogy Silenus lists is actually a history of the Army of the Potomac, not the Civil War as a whole. Catton’s trilogy on the war as a whole is tilted The Coming Fury, **Terrible Swift Sword ** and Never Call Retreat. He also wrote a one-volume history, This Hallowed Ground.
The Life Of Johnny Reb & it’s companion volume, The Life Of Billy Yank.
They tell you about the life of the soldier in the War.
The Story The Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell–covers a rarely-addressed topic on the social climate of the Civil War.
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz.
Gives a smart look back from today and dispels a lot of myths about what we think we know about that period of time.
The Killer Angels
While fiction, gives a very accurate accounting of Gettysburg.
A couple of three novels:
Gone for Soldiers (Shaara) about the Mexican-American War, think of it as a prelude.
Gods & Generals (Shaara) The start of the war.
The Killer Angels (Shaara) The Battle of Gettysburg
The Last Full Measure (Shaara) The end of the war.
If you are looking to get a full historical overview, then the books by Catton and others mentioned by other posters make sense. If you want to get more inside the mindsets that led to the War and learn about its most famous battle, this book is great - generally held up as one of the best war fictionalizations ever written - my copy had blurbs by a few modern-day generals saying it was their favorite book…
If you are just starting on a study of the Civil War (be warned, that can last a life time) you can’t find a better place to start than Bruce Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy, Mr Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road and his triumph of literature and research, Stillness at Appomattox. All three ought to be available at any decent library and they have been out in paperback for decades.
If you want to really dig in to the subject take a look at Douglas Southall Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants. For a very readable, although flawed, micro-study try George Stewart’s Pickett’s Charge and John J. Pullen’s *The Twentieth Maine[/]. The last two are major sources for The Killer Anglels.
I love Killer Angels. Came into the thread to recommend it but I got beaten to the punch!
You have certainly gotten enough non-fiction suggestions to keep you busy for a while, but if you want another suggestion in the fiction category, try Look Away and Until the End, both by Harold Coyle. The two books focus on a pair of brothers who fight on opposite sides in the Civil War. It is fiction, yes, but Coyle is a very good writer and these books really give you a feel for what life in the trenches was really like.
A very interesting book I recently read is called April 1865 by Jay Winik. It focusses on the last month of the war and discusses how differently things would’ve ended up had Lee NOT surrendered his entire army at Appomattox, but instead unleashed them as a guerrilla army to wreak havoc on the conquering Union army. The results would not have been pretty.