The Dogs of War: 1861 (New York: Oxford, May 2011) BY Emory M. Thomas There was essentially a failure or breakdown of the political machine that caused one part of the United States to start to break away from the rest after the legal and undisputed election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The failure of the ability to compromise (as had been accomplished in 1820, 1850) existed within a “martial moment,” historian Emory M. Thomas notes in, The … Read entire article »

[Originally posted on January 29th, 2011 at blog4history.com] The Civil War: A Concise History Louis P. Masur Hardback, 136 pages From the Publisher: Louis P. Masur’s The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war’s multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a … Read entire article »

The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War Donald Stoker (Hardback, 512 pages) I’m going to go out on what should be a well occupied limb ready to break under the weight and say that Donald Stoker’s The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War will win award(s) next year. Stoker’s book is not just keenly researched, but he handles the war policies and strategies of the North and South in a fairly unique way. From the publisher: In The Grand Design , Donald Stoker provides a comprehensive and often surprising account of strategy as it evolved between Fort Sumter and Appomattox. Reminding us that strategy is different from tactics (battlefield deployments) and operations (campaigns conducted in pursuit of a strategy), Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified their political goals … Read entire article »