Book cover of The Confederate War

Book description

If one is to believe contemporary historians, the South never had a chance. Many allege that the Confederacy lost the Civil War because of internal division or civilian disaffection; others point to flawed military strategy or ambivalence over slavery. But, argues distinguished historian Gary Gallagher, we should not ask why…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Confederate War as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because it connects the military and the home fronts of the American Civil War. How, for example, specific battles were pursued and fought for the sake of public opinion and how, more generally, political priorities dictated military strategy.

The Confederacy was a slaveholders’ republic that had huge racial, social, and—indeed—gender divisions, which all worsened during the war, but Gallagher also shows how many white southerners, whether or not they owned enslaved people, united behind a Confederate nationalism focused on their equivalent of George Washington and the Continental Army of the American Revolution: Robert E. Lee and…

From Adrian's list on slavery ambition and the Civil War.

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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