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Title: Not much new here
Review: This book summarizes the Noble Lost Cause version of the Civil War (or perhaps I should say "War of Northern Aggression"). It's perhaps significant that all the jacket blurbs are from teachers at southern colleges or right-wing columnists (or both). The war was all the fault of the North, and the South can do no wrong... all the atrocity stories are trotted out (there are five pages on the burning of Columbia, but you won't find any mention of the burning of Chambersburg or Lawrence by Confederates). Writers who disagree with his views are tarred with the brush of "leftism". The title seems to imply that we'll hear new revelations about Lincoln's iniquity, but the book's just a summary of secondary source material. On the plus side, it's clearly written and a good place to go to find a presentation of the extreme pro-Southern view of the war. But read something a bit more balanced, too (McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is a good place to start).
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