Anyone who has been reading Civil War history for years becomes disillusioned and dismayed, like the combatants themselves, charging when fresh but plodding when weary, yet somehow always renewed for the next battle just over the hill: further explanation. No book, no set of books, no lifetime of...
The parallels between this time period and today are chilling. Catton writes about the turmoil following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry to the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run). It details the process in which Americans fought each other because of greed and a lack of understanding of the ...
This is the second of Catton's Civil War trilogy, apparently picking up where his first, The Coming Fury, left off (I say apparently because I started with this one). I've never read Catton before but now I'm hooked on his work. He had a wonderful way of writing about history, bringing it to life...
Cyril Connolly noted the depressive effect of numerous and exhaustive biographies of hard-luck poets—reading yet another life of Baudelaire “we know, with each move into a cheap hotel, exactly how many cheap hotels lie ahead of him.” Mr. Lincoln’s Army makes me feel that way. Catton’s masterly na...
Ulysses S. Grant is one of the most mis-understood men in American history. Bruce Catton gives us a balanced and thorough picture of the man, his methods, and his character. In this book, the first of a two-part series, Catton gives an in-depth look at Grant from 1861 when he first enlisted to 18...
Bruce Catton was known as a popular historian when he first published books about the American Civil War, because of his narrative nonfiction format. All of the books being released digitally now are ones previously published in a non-digital age. This reviewer hunted down Catton’s three volume C...
