Library Journal
Most Civil War history books focus on presidents, generals, politics, and military maneuvers. The experience of the common solider, women, children, and African Americans are discussed more rarely. Through the use of over 440 textual and visual sources, this work sheds light on the experiences of all those affected by the war. Edited by Kagan (former publisher & managing editor, Time-Life Books; Great Battles of the Civil War), with contributing author Stephen Hyslop (National Geographic Almanac of World History) and contributing military historian Harris J. Andrews (Echoes of Glory), the book is divided into seven lavishly illustrated sections. The chronologically arranged chapters take the reader from the divisive years leading to the war through the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Each chapter includes a chronology and draws from diaries and letters, newspaper articles and illustrations, and photographs and maps to tell stories of the participants from both the battlefield and the home front. Appendixes include statistics on casualties of the war, a selected list of milestones, a glossary, and a list of sources for the images used. Archival collections from around the country were tapped, and the photographs have been reproduced using the most modern techniques. Though any work of this nature must simplify the story, this is a good introductory volume for those not already knowledgeable about the war. It would be a fine addition to circulating or reference collections in larger public libraries whose shelves are not already overflowing with Civil War volumes, but it is not recommended for larger academic collections.—Theresa McDevitt
