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Title: The best short history of the Civil War
Review: This is quite simply the best short comprehensive history of the Civil War available, and has been since it was first published 20 years ago. It was the best short history of anything since Gibbon, and nothing has really rivalled it since.McPherson places battles, people and politics in a definitive context that strikes the reader as being as close as any human can come to having a "true" understanding of that War. It is EXTREMELY well written as well, and set the stage for the Ambroses and McCulloughs who followed through and popularized scholarly history.
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