Writing the Civil War
Subtitle: the quest to understand
By: edited by James M. McPherson, William J. Cooper, Jr..
Contributors: McPherson, James M.; Cooper, William J. 1940-
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Columbia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 356
Subjects: United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Historiography
Description: No event has transformed the United States more fundamentally - or been studied more exhaustively - than the Civil War. In Writing the Civil War, fourteen distinguished historians present a wide-ranging discussion of the vast effort to chronicle the conflict - an undertaking that began with the remembrances of Civil War veterans and has become an increasingly prolific field of scholarship.

Covering a variety of topics - from battlefield operations to the impact of race and gender - this volume is an informative guide through the labyrinth of Civil War literature. The contributors provide authoritative and interpretive evaluations of the study and explication of the struggle that has been called the American Iliad.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / James M. McPherson and William J. Cooper, Jr.; title: Blueprint for victory: Northern strategy and military policy / Gary W. Gallagher; title: Rebellion and conventional warfare: Confederate strategy and military policy / Emory M. Thomas; title: Battlefield tactics / Joseph Glatthaar; title: "Not the general but the soldier": the study of Civil War soldiers / Reid Mitchell; title: Abraham Lincoln vs. Jefferson Davis: comparing presidential leadership in the Civil War / Mark Neely, Jr.; title: An elusive synthesis: Northern politics during the Civil War / Michael F. Holt; title: Beyond state rights: the shadowy world of Confederate politics / George Rable; title: Constitutional crisis / Michael Les Benedict; title: What did the winners win? the social and economic history of the North during the Civil War / Phillip Shaw Paludan; title: Behind the lines: Confederate economy and society / James L. Roark; title: "Ours as well as that of the men": women and gender in the Civil War / Drew Gilpin Faust; title: Slavery and freedom in the Civil War South / Peter Kolchin; title: Index.