CWL --- Writing the Civil War: The Quest to Understand

Wrting the Civil War, William J. Cooper, James McPherson, eds., University of South Carolina Press, 356 pp. 1998.

A well polished collection of essays on the schools of thought within a variety of American Civil War topics. Politics, economics, tactics, the role of women, blacks, and volunteers are covered by outlining the trends of the past 30 years in these fields and others. Read with Pressely's 'Americans Interpret Their Civil War' and Guelzo's 'Crisis of the American Republic' a solid foundation in Civil War historiography would be gained by the serious student of the American Civil War. 'Writing the Civil War' is written in such a fashion that a general familiarity with Civil War bibliography of the past 30 years is required; this book is probably not for the general undergraduate student or the Civil War military buff.