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Title: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ISBN: 0-345-34810-9 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.65 (406 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brings Our Deadliest War to Life
Comment: To citizens of these United States, the Civil War was the defining event in our nation. It was a war of battles with evocative names: Bull Run, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg... Perhaps the war was about slavery, perhaps it was about the clash between an industrial democracy and a planting autocracy. But what was it really like?
Even the best historians fail to make compelling their descriptions of battle. It all starts to sound like business prose. We know there were real issues on the ground, real death and fear and dreadful mistakes. We know, too, that some battles were decisive, and perhaps we are given numbers - numbers dead, and so on. But unless you know how read those numbers and descriptions of troop movements (unless you yourself have toiled in the mud and trenches, or had to make choices that meant death for somebody), it all comes to seem like a company's annual report does to most of us, like figures with no blood in them.
The Killer Angels tells us things about the battle of Gettysburg that a history book cannot. It puts us into the minds of a few key people in the Union and Confederate armies, and it puts us on the ground during those murderous three days. We learn to look from eye level, we get some feel for the constant presence of death. We see devout soldiers, and soldiers who are willing to die without any hope of a heaven. We learn what it was like at Gettysburg, and why failures of character mattered.
Michael Shaara's method was to go back to the original sources - the letters and memoirs and diaries of those who were there - to find a more personal truth about the war. This is a targeted book without the pretensions of a "great" novel. It is focused in intent and rather simple in structure. It shows those days of the battle (and the agonizing nights) through the eyes of a few of the key officers of the Confederacy and a couple of junior officers of the Union. This was an interesting decision but, I think, appropriate: to a great extent, the South lost the fight because of Lee's decisions, and the North held because of those junior officers. But read this book, and draw your own conclusions. You will never think of the Civil War as mere "history" again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb
Comment: It is probably one of the most emotionally draining, awe inspiring, realistic novels I have ever read. "The Killer Angels" captured the battle of Gettysburg in all of its horror. I just finished the book and I am finding it difficult trying to write this review.
This is not some dry history of another civil war battle. This is the story of Gettysburg, the key battle of the Civil War. The story told by Shaara is about people caught up in a battle that is reduces men to bloody statistics. Throughout this book you sense Lee's and Longstreet's, fears, weaknesses, and most of all their sadness. They are the killer angels sending men off to battle and perhaps to their deaths.
I know this is a fictional account of the battle of Gettysburg but the reader gets a gritty realistic look into the war. The conversations between the Lee and Longstreet are just as you would expect them to be. Shaara is a master of dialog and has excellent sense of history. What I liked above all are his "voice" and his point of view. He seems to inhabit his characters and breathes life into them, this is rare in historical fiction. He also uses the vernacular of the time which adds the realism.
Maps were very helpful also. It adds to the story when you are picturing a battle if you can see the topographical constraints and strategies of the officers.
"The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara, won a well deserved Pulitzer Prize. I recommend this book to everyone and if you are a history buff this is a must read. To Summarize it in one word AWESOME.
Rating: 5
Summary: This book is cool = D
Comment: The Killer Angels reviewed by Joseph Lee
The Killer Angels, written by Michael Shaara, will surely not disappoint the fans of books on war and battles. Shown by this novel, it seems that Michael Shaara is an expert at this topic of story. This novel will keep you intensely caught up as if you were reading straight out of a Civil War journal that got every glimpse of the battle of Gettysburg.
It's not a surprise that this book has won the Pulitzer Prize. With its maps and its well-written text that people can understand in very well, the novel is easy to follow through. Even though this novel is only based on three days, it will give out very good information.
The book is mainly based on the characters of General Robert E. Lee and General Mead. Although they are the main characters, many sections of the novel are put towards General Chamberlain, General Longstreet, General Buford, and General Pickett. Each chapter goes to a general and his men. It reveals the things they went through and what kind of fighting each regiment had through both eyes of the Confederate and the Union.
This novel truly showed what two sides of one nation and the dreams of both sides were fighting for in the four bloodiest days of the United States of Americas history. This novel makes a reenactment in your head. Showing that not only did the soldiers go into war with just orders, but with honor, pride, dreams, vengeance, and moral issues that was stirred up by the society of the 1800's.
As Michael Shaara shows the generals, he doesn't just tell the reader a story but he brings in the reader by showing the mind of the Generals. Shaara shows things like the strategies the Generals had, the ideas that the Generals came up with, how the Generals felt about the other side, and on what they felt about the war (why their in it and why should they be).
For anyone who wants to know more about the Civil War or just wants a great a good adventure, this book is strongly recommended. I feel this book was just extraordinary in detail and in climax. Chapter after chapter the climax builds and builds and even though
the reader knows what went on in the war, this novel is still strongly recommended. This novel may just give the reader some things they didn't know.
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Title: Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara ISBN: 0345422473 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara ISBN: 0345434811 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 02 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Killer Angels (Cliffs Notes) by Debra A. Bailey ISBN: 0764585495 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara, Jeffrey M. Shaara ISBN: 0345452062 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 26 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Glorious Cause by Jeffrey M. Shaara ISBN: 0345427580 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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