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The American Civil War: A Military History |  | Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $1.49
as of 3/21/2010 02:01 CDT details
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New (50) Used (43) Collectible (2) from $1.08
Seller: LUCASMAR
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 25659
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.6
ISBN: 0307263436
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.73
EAN: 9780307263438
ASIN: 0307263436
Publication Date: October 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780307263438 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name. Now Keegan examines these and other puzzles with a peerless understanding of warfare, uncovering dimensions of the conflict that have eluded earlier historiography.
While offering original and perceptive insights into psychology, ideology, demographics, and economics, Keegan reveals the war’s hidden shape—a consequence of leadership, the evolution of strategic logic, and, above all, geography, the Rosetta Stone of his legendary decipherments of all great battles. The American topography, Keegan argues, presented a battle space of complexity and challenges virtually unmatched before or since. Out of a succession of mythic but chaotic engagements, he weaves an irresistible narrative illuminated with comparisons to the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and other conflicts.
The American Civil War is sure to be hailed as a definitive account of its eternally fascinating subject.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
Just Buy the Book for the Author's Reputation March 21, 2010
Illiniguy71
Keegan is a great military historian with many excellent books to his credit. This book, although it contains brilliant characterization and original insight, also contains an astounding amount of factual error and some very sloppy writing. Problems with the map that follows the table of contents have been noted by James McPherson and others. But to my knowledge, no one has noted that according to the map's shaded line, the Confederacy extended not only into Indian Territory but also into Kansas!
On page xiii we read that "The South formed half the national territory, an enormous area that touched the North's organized regions only at a few widely separated points." In fact, although sometimes separated by a river, the North and the Confederacy touched each other all the way from the point where the Potomac River pours into the Chesapeake below Washington, D.C all the way to the southwest corner of Missouri and beyond. Does Keegan think that the states of the Old Northwest or Kentucky were not an organized region in the 1860s?
On page xv it is asserted that Philadelphia was "America's largest city". Scholars do believe that Philadelphia was the largest city in the colonies in the mid-18th century, but already by the 1790 census New York was America's largest city and has remained so for 220 years. In 1860, Philadelphia had only 70% as many people as did New York even with Brooklyn counted separately.
The author maintains on page 11 that "Southernness drifted as it does today . . . overlap[ping]the Mason-Dixon line to run into southern Illinois . . . " But in truth, all the more southern parts of Illinois lie south of an extension of the Mason-Dixon Line. On p.22, Keegan seems to confuse the Tennessee River with the Ohio.
Not all his errors are geographical. He says (p. 26), "In 1820, it seemed unlikely that more land would be added to the territory of the United States . . . The vast Southwest . . . was the property of the sovereign country of Mexico . . . " In fact, in 1820 what would become the American Southwest was a part of the Empire of Spain. The international community did not recognize Mexico as independent until August 24, 1821.
According to Keegan (p.28) "Southern nationalism . . . even had its own lyceum, the University of the South, founded at Swanee, Tennessee, to train Southern scholars who could debate on equal terms with men from Harvard." The truth is that while the University's administration was established in 1857, and a cornerstone for the first building was laid in 1860, no classes were held until 1868. Thus it is irrelevant to the coming of the Civil War.
On the same page one reads that the "founding fathers" of Southern nationalism were John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay. While this is certainly true of Calhoun, it is an entirely wrong-headed characterization of the Kentuckian known as "The Great Compromiser." In fact, Clay was the political leader that the young Lincoln most admired.
Page 29 tells us that the Kansas-Nebraska Act "would admit both territories as states . . . but the first allowing slavery, the second free." Actually, although many people expected that to be the ultimate outcome, the Act called for popular sovereignty in both territories--that is the voters of each territory were to decide.
Someone else has noted Keegan's gaff on page 31 where he says that "Lincoln would be prosecuted under federal law for uttering the sentiments" that he put into speeches in 1860. Rubbish! We Americans are free to say what we think without fear of legal prosecution except in very special circumstances. A national politician today who uttered Lincoln's words about not believing in full racial equality would be hounded from public life by political opponents and the media, but such a person would not be prosecuted under either federal or state law.
McPherson in the New York Times has noted the error in Keegan's statement on page 35 that North Carolina was not invaded until late in the war.
On the following page the author says that Washington and Richmond were "only a hundred miles apart, little more than two days' march." Anyone who has had infantry training knows that this is quite an exaggeration. Infantry troops occasionally go 50 miles in a 15 to 18 hour march, but they do not turn around and do the same thing the next day. A training march of 100 miles lasts 4 to 5 days. Keegan is too good a military historian not to know this. Elsewhere in the book he reports as noteworthy Stonewall Jackson's men covering 36 miles in 54 hours.
On page 61, Keegan reports that "in the presidential election of 1864, he [Lincoln] carried the popular vote five to one." Curiously on page 270, Keegan contradicts himself with the correct information that Lincoln won 55% and McClellan 45% of the popular vote.
The author (p. 108) reports that "Missouri was a cotton state." Missouri's 49,000 bales of cotton in 1859 were less than one-tenth of one percent of the 59,000,000 bales produced nationally. On the next page is another error concerning Missouri. Keegan thinks that after the Price-Harney agreement in St. Louis in 1861, Nathaniel Lyon had General Price removed from command. But Price, commanding the pro-secession Missouri State Guard, was Lyon's enemy. It was Harney whom Lyon was able to remove by pulling strings in Washington. On page 270, Keegan puts the Centralia Massacre at "Centralia, Kansas." It took place at Centralia, Missouri.
Keegan opines on page 122 that when Lincoln learned early in 1862 that General Hallack would not be able to accomplish what the president had wanted in Kentucky, "Lincoln seems to have been seized with despair, an understandable but not characteristic mood." I would argue that periodic despair was quite characteristic of Lincoln, since he suffered from what he called "the hypo" that is to say periods of intense depression all through his adult life.
McPherson had noted the gaff about the Great Kanawha River on page 116 and the gaff concerning Tennessee giving on to Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio on page 153.
We learn on page 219 that the fall of Vicksburg meant "slicing off the western half [of the Confederacy]including the whole state of Texas and the territories of Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and what would be Oklahoma from material and other assistance to the Old South." How much assistance does Mr. Keegan think the Confederacy was receiving from Nebraska Territory BEFORE the fall of Vicksburg?
I won't bother to mention additional errors noted by others and all the confused and contradictory passages. In my opinion, the book should be read only by those who know enough about American history, American geography, and Civil War history to recognize when its author is simply wrong. And shame on the publisher for publishing such a sloppy book, knowing full well that it would sell simply for the author's reputation!
Who is Ambrose Bierce? March 20, 2010
James D. Vaneldik
Keegan does a good job of introducing the geographic constraints faced by the North in its quest to conquer the South. It provides a good basic text for the new Civil War buff. The book has one glaring defect however: Keegan obviously has had no exposure to, nor has any awareness of "Ambrose Bierce's Civil War," the collected writings of this American master. A combat veteran of much experience, Bierce's short stories, in the style of Poe, convey all the realism, horror, and numbing psychological stress Keegan says is sadly missing from the literature of the era. He sites the second-hand novel,"Red Badge of Courage," as the one exception, a declaration one might expect from an ill informed college freshman.
 The American Civil War March 20, 2010
Dr Ihian Mackenzie
Poorly written, repetitive and in need of SOME editing, let alone a good editing. And Keegan could have resorted to his spellchecker. Disappointing.
Great on strategy...but disappointing overall February 24, 2010
Patrick J. Brunet
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mr. Keegan is one of the foremost military historians now writing, so it is painful to write a less than glowing review of his latest work. Here he offers a one-volume survey of our Civil War, with an emphasis on military strategy, aimed at general readers. Military technology is given some coverage while politics and home front issues are downplayed. Strategy is king here and he does make many comparisons between the Civil War and World War I that are both interesting and insightful. It is based on mostly respected secondary sources. Reading this, you do see the mind of a practiced military historian. Sadly, the work is undermined by three major problems. In his conclusion, he notes the centrality of military geography in the persecution of the war; landscape and terrain being so important. Yet, throughout the text, there are nagging and mulitple errors that undermine the reader's faith in the content. What he labels the Upper Mississippi River, is known in the U.S. as the middle Mississippi (p.107, 128, 134). This is the second book by him where he identifies Cairo, Illinois as being BELOW the mouth of the Ohio. There is no large arid area in the South (p.120). and Tennessee does NOT abut the Ohio River (p.154). Had this reader known more about the eastern geography, I believe that I would have found many more; as it is, I stopped noting the errors that I was sure of. I think a reader would really need to have a Civil War atlas on hand while reading this book to get a full story. The second major problem is repetitiveness. Throughout the text, he repeats some stories, like the Winfield Scott and the Anaconda plan at three and four places. Naturally some repetition is unavoidable in a Civil War narrative which mixes some chronological and subject approaches yet careful editing should mitigate that issue. This brings us to the third and most major failing. This book needs a good editing. One would not expect to say this of Mr. Keegan nor the Alfred H. Knopf Company, long regarded as one of, if not, the premier American publisher, yet it is clearly so. There are paragraphs that are a third of the page in length with 7-9 sub-clauses where the reader must go over them multiple times to get the drift. In other places, puncuation is lacking so that the meaning is equally unclear. In his acknowledgements, Mr. Keegan thanks many editors for their assistance but surely this is a courtesy on Mr. Keegan's part because the painful geographic errors should be obvious to anyone who has looked at a map... or who doesn't view the U.S. from New York City only. Could the editors just have assumed that Mr. Keegan is always right on everything he puts on the page or have such respect for him that they believed he doesn't need editing? The awkward sentence structure and repetitiveness does a disservice to the strategic analysis and is a disservice to the reader. This book will sell a lot of copies on the well-earned strength of Mr. Keegan's reputaion but this work will actually hurt his reputation. James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom or Peter J. Parish's the American Civil War, are better one volume works. This is really too bad since, if the editors had done their job, this could be real contribution to the literature.
 A Well Written History Covering Familiar Ground February 16, 2010
Thomas J. Rice (Briarcliff Manor, NY)
There is nothing very new or very revealing in John Keegan's "The American Civil War: A Military History". Much of the ground (as it were) has already been covered in numerous volumes by very competent historians.
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed this volume Professor Keegan writes in a very engaging style and in clear declarative sentences. Both the style of book and its relatively modest length make it enjoyable and accessible to those of us who do not subscribe to "Civil War Monthly".
Professor Keegan emphasizes the role of topography in shaping the strategies and tactics of the Civil War - and just as importantly - how topography contributed to the bloody almost hand to hand style of fighting that characterized a number of particularly memorable battles. This is not a new observation but one Professor Keegan made one of his cen tral points in a very effective way.
Also interesting to me was reading a book about the American Civil War by an outsider - an Englishman. As we know, the Confederate States sought (but did not garner) the support of the European powers, particulary England. We know, of course, that such support never was offered but Professor Keegan is more blunt than most in asserting that there was never any real prospect of the South receiving recognition. It interested me to learn that England's political classes were ultimately more repulsed by the slave ownership in the South than they were enticed by the access to the South's cotton (at least when alternative supplies were developed).
I very much liked Professor Keegan's candid assessments of the virtues and short-comings of the many American generals on both sides. He makes a very compelling case for the superiority of General U.S. Grant as a soldier who understood the multifacted nature of the war and the importance not only of strategy and tactics on the battlefield but also of logistics, leadership choices in the ranks of his subordinates and politics away from the battlefield.
I recommend this work with enthusiasm.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
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