I've picked up a whole slew of books lately. One of my colleagues in the office commented that he was certain I couldn't read all the books I get (of course, he's right). Just call me a collector, I suppose. Of course, you can never have enough reference material. Anyway, here's the highlights:
Chester Hearn, Admiral David Dixon Porter: The Civil War Years. Definitely a reference work, and not something I'll read cover to cover.
D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, Volume I: Atlantic America, 1492-1800. Having an undergraduate minor in Geography, with particular emphasis on historical and cultural geography, I am always interested in this kind of analysis. My next goal is to get Volume II which covers 1800-1867.
Walter A. McDougall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877. This one was free from the History Book Club. Seems a rather broad interpretation of the Civil War era, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Still, 610 pages of text is a bit much for my current style of reading.
Gary Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War. I picked up a copy of this one free from an unnamed source, which is where I get quite a few of my books actually. I also picked up edited volumes by Gallagher on the Fredericksburg and Antietam campaigns from this source. The campaign books are merely references, but Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten is one that I do plan to read in the near future. Got to get through with the other two I'm working on right now.
Am I a book addict? I'm thinking that's a possibility.
1 comment:
Personally, I'm of the opinion that one can never have too many books. In fact, one of the reasons I became a historian was so that I had an excuse to build a book collection. :)
If you're interested in good historical fiction at all, I've come across a great book that's being released in October, Bedlam South by David Donaldson and Mark Grisham. I was really impressed with their attention to historical accuracy, and how they tackled the subjects of madness and mental health during the Civil War.
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