# Yet another book recommendation thread. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 1, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-book-recommendation-thread/192254 "2003-08-01T00:54:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-book-recommendation-thread/192254/1 "2003-08-01T00:54:00Z")
I’m interested in American military history. I will read anything that has to do with the Civil War. Even more so if it spends a lot of time on the South. Historical fiction, such as anything by Jeff Shaara, is one of my favorites. What other books would I be interested in. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-book-recommendation-thread/192254/2 "2003-08-01T04:06:45Z")
Start with his father’s, Michael Shaara’s, _The Killer Angels_, a novel on the battle of Gettysburg… The best one volume book on the Civil War is James M. McPherson’s _Battle Cry of Freedom_. From there you can go onto Shelby Foote’s trilogy on the war, now available in a [one volume edition](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394749138/qid=1059709762/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-8191535-5212828). Be warned: it is immense. He spends up to 250 pages on single battles. For a shorter, more traditional and northern perspective, there is Bruce Catton’s older Civil War trilogy: _Terrible Swift Sword_, _The Coming Fury_, and _Never Call Retreat_. He also wrote _The American Heritage New History of the Civil War_ (updated by McPherson), excellent like all the American Heritage books are. Geoffrey Ward’s illustrated history, _The Civil War_, accompanies the Ken Burns documentary, which is available at libraries everywhere and is one of the few works of his I think really works. The war lead to _Reconstruction_ and you can go there with Eric Foner’s book of that name. Robert William Fogel & Stanley L. Engerman’s _Time on the Cross_ is a controversial but fascinating look at slavery. On a lighter note, Margaret Leech’s _Reveille in Washington_ is a marvelous look at the city during the war, with much commentary on Lincoln and others. Gore Vidal’s _Lincoln: A Novel_ is his usual astringent look at the city of that same period. There are a million biographies of Lincoln. I happen to have Benjamin J. Thomas _Abraham Lincoln_. It’s a good place to start. For the southern equivalent, start with Roy Blount’s brand new _Robert E. Lee_, an entry in the excellent Penguin Lives series of mini-biographies. Douglas Southall Freeman is the grand old man of the southern viewpoint, perhaps a little too southern for today’s tastes. Still, his books can’t be beat, if only for length. Fortunately, there is now a one-volume abridged edition of _Lee_ available and you can go on to his war study _Lee’s Lieutenants_ also now available abridged (at 912 pages) if you really want to get into it. I don’t have a recommendation for a bio of Jefferson Davis. I read some ponderous tome many years ago and had enough. But there have been a number of new biographies in recent years for you to try, including several that compare him and Lincoln. Ken Burns and everybody else quotes heavily from the diaries of Mary Chesnut for how it felt to live in the South during the war. _A Diary from Dixie_ is the thing itself (abridged) but C. Vann Woodward’s _Mary Chesnut’s Civil War_ gives more background and annotation. It used to be said you weren’t a Civil War expert until you had read 500 books on the subject. Today you probably need to read 1000, just because that many more have been written since that comment was made. I haven’t touched on any of the specialized aspects of the war or individual titles on the battles because there are just too many. But these ought to keep you out of mischief for a while. 🙂