A review by lewismillholland
The Civil War by Bruce Catton

3.0

It’s history, and I’m a glutton, and it unveils oversimplifications I’ve learned over the past two-and-a-half decades, so I’m putty in its hands. When I was in AP US History I learned that the Civil War was fought not over slavery, as was the common conception, but actually it was over states’ rights. But, later, I learned about the Fugitive Slave Act and the Confederacy’s strong central government in war, and I learned that the most paramount states’ right was the right to own slaves, and the Civil War was truly over slavery.

This book was a reckoning for me. Yes, if you had to boil the cause of the war down to one cause, slavery was the most critical issue. That’s the disagreement that led to armed fighting. But the beauty is that the nuance of that era in history doesn’t have to be boiled down to a single argument. There were the high tariffs favored by the North, and the Yankee push for a homestead act. States’ rights, even if they weren’t the crucial issue in the schism, were rhetorically and emotionally present.

One gripe with this book is that it focused heavily on the military movements and less than I would like on the politicking. But, every book can’t be The Power Broker — it gets a solid three and a half stars from me, and I’d eagerly read another work by Bruce Catton.