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Title: The best single-volume history of the Civil War
Review: James McPherson's BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM is, simply put, the greatest single volume of Civil War history yet written. The Civil War is a fascinating subject -- on average, a book a day has been published on the subject since the end of the war 135 years ago. The brilliance of McPherson's book is that he manages to provide a vision of the Civil War which both Northerners and Southerners can agree upon. By comparison, Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative is too much a southerner's view of the war to be considered truly objective. While an impressive feat, it is three volumes of narrative, instead of one comprehensive volume of history, like McPherson's book is. Battle Cry of Freedom is well written, well researched, and well deserves the Pulitzer Prize that it won in 1989. No stone is left unturned, and it is perhaps the closest anyone has yet come to a definitive book about such a controversial topic.
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