Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)
by James M. McPherson

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)
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Book Summary Information

Author: James M. McPherson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-12-11
ISBN: 019516895X
Number of pages: 952
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Book Reviews of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)

Book Review: The almost complete context.
Summary: 4 Stars

Bruce Catton's splendid series on the American Civil War was organized around the battles, large and small, described in easy grasped detail. Beyond that, Catton filled the reader in on the logistical situation -- building and reparing railroads, recruitment, digging ditches and canals -- almost to the point at which we could smell the laborers. And all this working and dying took place within a political and economic climate that Catton fills in with a fine sense of necessity.

McPherson's Pulitzer Prize winner more or less turns the priorities around. It's largely about economics and politics, and the historical spectrum is broader. We don't even get to the 1848 war with Mexico until a couple of chapters have sailed by.

That's not to denigrate McPherson's book. It's a masterful collection of data written in a prose that is non-technical and, if not as mellifluous as Catton's, sometimes with deliberate phrases or quotes that are funnier, usually because of irony. What I mean is -- it doesn't resemble anybody's doctoral dissertation.

It's a LONG sucker though. I've plowed through it without skipping anything -- without wanting to skip anything -- and am about to finish the last few pages as an educated person.

If you found any of Catton's books palatable, you're sure to enjoy this one-volume disquisition on the social background of the war.
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Summary of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)

Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. From there it moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering by each side, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict. The South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war, slavery, and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.
Published in 1988 to universal acclaim, this single-volume treatment of the Civil War quickly became recognized as the new standard in its field. James M. McPherson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, impressively combines a brisk writing style with an admirable thoroughness. He covers the military aspects of the war in all of the necessary detail, and also provides a helpful framework describing the complex economic, political, and social forces behind the conflict. Perhaps more than any other book, this one belongs on the bookshelf of every Civil War buff.

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