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A review by nerdofdoom
The Civil War by Bruce Catton
5.0
Audiobook.
A solid and concise history of the Civil War that is well suited to someone not especially familiar with the subject, or who needs a quick overview. Catton's prose is strong, and he is good at describing the course of military campaigns in an easy to follow, unencumbered way.
He does a fair amount of moralizing that is, at times, easy to take issue with. His view of reconstruction as entirely too hard on the South is debatable, for example. In the end he forwards a notion that perhaps had Lincoln lived to be in charge of policy that Southerners would be treated nice enough to be conciliated. Similarly, his periodic discussions of westward expansion and federal land-grants is full of bothersome references to a "virgin continent" wide open to exploitation.
All this is to say that this book is very readable, and I will continue to recommend it, but it is a product of the time that it was written.
A solid and concise history of the Civil War that is well suited to someone not especially familiar with the subject, or who needs a quick overview. Catton's prose is strong, and he is good at describing the course of military campaigns in an easy to follow, unencumbered way.
He does a fair amount of moralizing that is, at times, easy to take issue with. His view of reconstruction as entirely too hard on the South is debatable, for example. In the end he forwards a notion that perhaps had Lincoln lived to be in charge of policy that Southerners would be treated nice enough to be conciliated. Similarly, his periodic discussions of westward expansion and federal land-grants is full of bothersome references to a "virgin continent" wide open to exploitation.
All this is to say that this book is very readable, and I will continue to recommend it, but it is a product of the time that it was written.