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Title: Pennsylvania's Civil War: Making and Remaking by William Blair, William Pencak ISBN: 0-271-02079-2 Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: April, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Get it from the library...
Comment: ... and then, it will be worth the read. (Sorry, Amazon.) Another Amazon reviewer gave this work five stars, which means he would have to give Bud Robertson's biography of Stonewall Jackson FIFTY stars.
While these essays are well prepared and documented the way only real historians can do, political correctness motivates some of the subject material, and other topics are ho-hum. (A well known historian I respect has told me that "ho-hum" is fine for historical writing. Groan!) Contrary to that other reviewer's opinion, Christian B. Keller's "Keystone Confederates" essay does NOT prove that 2,000 Pennsylvanians "defected" to the South, only that 2,000 Confederate soldiers were born in Pennsylvania, of itself, meaningless. (Where were they RAISED? Is that unique to Pennsylvania? Where were they living when they enlisted? etc.) Elizabeth Milroy's "Avenue of Dreams" essay on the Philadelphia Sanitary Fair started fine but slid into an overlong blow-by-blow account of the fair's details, but some may like that sort of thing. (My wife, for example.) The letters of black soldier John C. Brock were welcome because of their uniqueness, although I would have preferred that editor Eric Smith had not told me before each one what I was about to read. In "The World Will Little Note Nor Long Remember," Christina Ericson wrote that Jennie (actually "Ginnie") Wade's so-called fiancée "had been killed shortly before the battle" [of Gettysburg]. In fact, Cpl. Johnston Hastings Skelly, Co. F, 87th Pennsylvania Infantry, died ten days AFTER Miss Wade, and there has never been one concrete piece of evidence to prove they were engaged. The rest of Ericson's article is largely a rehash of well known facts about Gettysburg women colored with twenty-first century crayons, although I detect a good historian at work. Of William Blair's "The Brother's War," I can only conclude that he likes blood-and-guts films (he sure didn't like "Gettysburg") and put this essay in the pointless category. Mark Thistlethwaite's saga of the Peter Rothermel Pickett's Charge painting is the best of the bunch.
In general, the writing is typically academic, i.e., grammatically perfect and unengaging. As a group, these essays "reach" for subjects that add little to our knowledge of the Civil War in Pennsylvania (contrary to the book's title) and too often view the 19th century through contemporary eyes. They may have meant what they wrote - this gendre of writing appears to be the "in" thing - or they may have been playing the "Phd game." I cannot say. I readily admit that it's possible you may like this book. As we seek new topics about the overexposed Civil War, more of its type are inevitable. They get good students' and faculty's essays into print and are cheaper for a university press to publish. But are they worth the death of so many trees? Wouldn't it be better to publish them on the Internet?
Rating: 5
Summary: The motivations of the soldiers and the impact of the war
Comment: Making And Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War is a welcome compendium of new information about Pennsylvania during the Civil War including such noteworthy facts as their being as many as two thousand Pennsylvanians who defected to the Confederacy to fight for the Southern cause. The focus of the ten essays compiled in this excellent history are on our current understanding regarding the motivations of the soldiers and the impact of the war on civilians, rather than on the Civil War battles or military leadership. Making And Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War is a highly recommended and informative addition to the growing body of Civil War scholarship.
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Title: Benjamin Franklin : An American Life by Walter Isaacson ISBN: 0684807610 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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