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The Civil War An Illustrated HistoryStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
Description"A treasure for the eye and mind" (The New York Times) about the greatest war in American history--and a magnificent companion volume to the celebrated PBS television series by one of our most treasured filmmakers. - With more than 500 illustrations: rare Civil War photographs--many never before published--as well as paintings, lithographs, and maps reproduced in full color.
A wealth of documentary illustrations and a narrative alive with original and energetic scholarship combine to present both the grand sweep of events and the minutest of human details. Here are the crucial events of the war: the firing of the first shots at Fort Sumter; the battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; the siege of Vicksburg; Sherman's dramatic march to the sea; the surrender at Appomattox. Here are the superb portraits of the key figures: Abraham Lincoln, claiming for the presidency almost autocratic power in order to preserve the Union; the austere Jefferson Davis, whose government disappeared almost before it could be formed; Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, seasoned generals of fierce brilliance and reckless determination. Here is the America in which the war was fought: The Civil War is not simply the story of great battles and great generals; it is also an elaborate portrait of the American people caught up in the turbulence of the times.
An additional resonance is provided by four essays by prominent Civil War historians, and Shelby Foote talks to filmmaker Ken Burns about wartime life on the battlefield and at home. |