Ok, I'm rambling. Here's the review.
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| Source: Amazon.com |
From the book’s cover:
Why did Abraham Lincoln sneak into Washington for his inauguration? Was the Gettysburg Address written on the back of an envelope? Where did the Underground Railroad run?
Can you answer these questions? If not, you're not alone! New York Times-bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis comes to the rescue, deftly sorting out the players, the politics, the key events -- Emancipation and Reconstruction, Shiloh and Gettysburg, Generals Grant and Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe -- and providing little-known facts that will enthrall even learned Civil War buffs. Vivid, informative, and hugely entertaining, Don't Know Much About® the Civil War is the only book you'll ever need on "the war that never ended."
Synopsis:
The publisher’s summary does the book justice. This book is a comprehensive overview of the events both during and surrounding the United States Civil War. But rather than just being a dull list of historical facts (well almost, but I’ll talk about that in a minute), the author puts a great deal of humanity in. There are interspersed documents as well as historical accounts from the people who were present. And this is thankfully not just a military strategy guide to the battles and the tactics, though that has its place, in my opinion. The book discusses a wealth of issues surrounding the Civil War, including arguably the most pivotal one: slavery.
The author, Kenneth Davis, does put forth observations on the events he is detailing, and this is also of value to the book. His perspective doesn’t seem too jaded, which could be easy to do seeing as the Civil War has been written about and analyzed extensively since its conclusion in 1865. I can’t recall anything specifically that I didn’t appreciate in Davis’s input.
Back to the synopsis. It has been a couple of weeks since I finished the book, so I can’t recall the whole thing clearly, but from my recollection, the book covers the history of slavery in the United States from its inception before the thirteen colonies were officially formed as such and goes right up through the Emancipation Proclamation. The book also charts the development of the North and the South, and the various compromises that were made in an effort to address some glaring issues that the Founding Fathers seem to not have wanted to handle in an adequate manner. In fact, if I recall right, Thomas Jefferson is covered fairly extensively in one of the book’s early chapters, and he made an interesting comment about how the issue of slavery would be a big deal sometime in the young nation’s history. Of course, this was coming from a man whose personal views on slavery are quite complex. He was a Virginian after all, and slavery was a big deal there (yes, I realize this is something of an understatement). And yet Jefferson also was a man who disagreed with the harsh treatment that some slaves in the South received, but at the same time he certainly didn’t go to any great effort to free his own slaves or to avoid any sort of punishment for them. It seems that Jefferson, both in general and in particular on the issue of slavery, was a complex and often contradictory individual.
And that’s just a snippet of the pre-history of the Civil War. We get all the details leading up to Lincoln’s election and with it, the advent of the modern Republican party. We get the whole bloody affair of the war itself. And we get the aftermath, to a certain extent. But I’ll cover that in “What I liked about it.”
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| The author, Kenneth C. Davis / Source: TheTakeAway.org |
What I liked about it:
The book did a good job, in my opinion, of giving a person who hasn’t had a thorough education on the Civil War and its causes and effects a good working understanding of what the whole thing was about. I especially liked that it was not a dull retelling of all the dates and facts, but that there was a strong human component in the text as well. The stuff about the Underground Railroad, for instance, was good. I learned a little more about the Abolitionist point of view, though I had studied the subject briefly in a prior college history course.
Also the war itself was interesting. Yes, there is a lot of coverage of the gory figures (number of deaths and such), but the accounts of the people who were part of the war made all those numbers seem more “alive,” as it were. And the personalities of the leading figures of the war, especially Robert E Lee, whom I have long had an admiration for, made the stories of their various exploits fit better into the overall narrative.
One character I found particularly fascinating was Nathan Bedford Forrest. Here was a man who understood the nature of war, in its most horrific and modern sense. The Civil War is said to be one of the first truly “modern” conflicts, and if so, Forrest was one of the first who really practiced modern war. This in no way means that I admire his actions, as he is said to be responsible for the murder of black Union soldiers who fell into his hands after their surrender at... I wish I recalled the name of the place. You can look it up though. Or better yet, read the book.
I also liked the book’s concluding chapter, which covered how the Civil War really never ended. The effects of that conflict are still being felt today. I am currently reading a book about Eisenhower’s Administration, and the events of the Civil War and the following Jim Crow laws are as prominent in it as they were in those events. It is amazing how the world didn’t really change all that much, and yet at the same time, because of the Civil War, it changed completely. I can’t explain it well enough, unfortunately. Suffice it to say, the old adage about how the more things change, the more they stay the same seems apt after reading this book.
What I learned, if anything:
Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. The period is not one I have had much interest in, as I am more a twentieth century historian and not as versed in nineteenth century politics or society. True, it is an important period in world history, and I’m learning more about it, but the century I was born in has always been more griping to me personally.
A list of specific things I learned would not be particularly informative reading, nor can I really give one since it has been a few weeks since I finished Don’t Know Much... As I mentioned in the synopsis, the book covers the time from before the colonies were formed to after the war ended. There were a lot of interesting things that the book talked about during that time. All in all, if you aren't already an expert on the Civil War, you’ll learn new things about that conflict and the time that led up to it by reading this book.
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| A strange but true fact: The guy (McLean) who lived on the property nearest the site of Bull Run, where the first real battle of the Civil War took place, moved south after the battle ended. He settled in a place in northern Virgina where he thought the war would not intrude. It just happened to be Appomattox Court House, where the Confederate forces under Lee surrendered at the end of the war. / Source: Old-Picture.com |
What I didn’t like about it:
For myself, I found the Civil War timeline feature to be a bit redundant at times. The author would have just finished describing some important events and then the whole thing would get chronologically recapped in the timeline section. This wouldn’t be such a problem in a physical book format, and so my gripe is a small one. But in audiobook format, I found it distracting.
Also, and this was easy enough to miss in an audiobook, I noted in an Amzon.com user review of the book that the book was poorly edited in places. The person who noted this specifically pointed out some instances where Davis would attribute somebody doing something that was not possible, such as stating at Texas became a state in a year when in fact it was technically still a republic at the stated date. This may not be a correct example of a real error in the book, but it makes the point. Some of the data given is apparently not completely factual. Probably due to poor editing. Hopefully this was a flaw in an early edition of the book, and has since been rectified. So my advice would be not to use this text for a book report, kids, or you will definitely want to double check your facts before submitting it to your teacher.
Of course, other reviewers on Amazon.com said the book was not deep enough, or that it had bias. I can’t say one way or the other in that regard. So I’d have to refer you to other more competent reviews of the book, and if you want to use this text for reference in an official capacity, I’d strongly advise you to back up what it says with other sources. I am not strong enough on the Civil War to say that it is a good book, but it was enjoyable to me, and made a good primer on the period.
Recommendation:
Yes, by all means read it, if you take it for what it is. As my above comments indicate, you can find deeper books on the Civil War, and if that is your real goal, by all means, skip this one. But for a good appetite quencher in a short (relatively) book, this is quite satisfactory.
Learn more about Don't Know Much About the Civil War... on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
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| Source: EscapistMagazine.com |
You've no doubt heard of Abarham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (or is it Vampire Killer? Or perhaps "Abe the Vampire Slayer?" - poking fun at Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but have you also heard of Terminator: 1861? Honest Abe with a gatling gun for a forearm! Sweet.
Damon Salvatore fought in the Civil War...which would mean good ol' Abe would possibly hunt him. Ha.
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