The Civil War/ American Homer: A Narrative (Modern Library)

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This specious op-ed piece reveals a bigoted loathing of Southern Americans by singling out Shelby Foote, himself roundly criticized by his Southern peers for his deliberate objectivity. One wonders if the only thing which will satisfy the author is if, after all the statues have been demolished and all the histories destroyed, the last things to be burned on the pyre of Historical Revisionism are Southern Americans, themselves. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House. 1974. ISBN 0-307-29041-7.

Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to

Yet as I grew older reading broadly on both the war itself and the 19th-century South, enjoying scholars such as Bell Irvin Wiley, John Hope Franklin, and Victoria Bynum, I realized that I fell in love with the series—but not for its historical accuracy. Instead, it offered a kind of self-satisfaction for me as a white American, and, more importantly, as a white Southerner. I came to realize that by downplaying the importance—and horrors—of slavery, and instead concentrating on hard-fought battles, valiant, virile soldiers, and heart-wrenching tales of romantic love and loss, the documentary specifically targeted one audience: white people. Find sources: "The Civil War: A Narrative"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( November 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Private Barry Benson, Army of Northern Virginia (1880), quoted by Shelby Foote at the conclusion of Ken Burns’ The Civil War The Civil War: A Narrative, Second Manassas to Perryville: The Sun Shines South. New York: Random House. 2005. ISBN 0-307-29025-5. Jones, John Griffin (July 16, 1982). Mississippi Writers Talking: Interviews with Eudora Welty, Shelby Foote, Elizabeth Spencer, Barry Hannah, Beth Henley. University Press of Mississippi. p.39. ISBN 9780878051540 . Retrieved July 16, 2018– via Google Books.

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It’s hard to know where to start when discussing Shelby Foote’s three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative. When he began working on the project, he was a novelist of some acclaim, though not widely known. When he finished, he had created a literary Rushmore, not just a book (or rather three books) but a veritable monument. It brought Foote fame and fortune unusual for an authority on the Civil War. a b Harrington, Evans, and Shelby Foote. "Interview With Shelby Foote." The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 4, 1971, pp. 349–377, p. 359. Foote professed to be a reluctant celebrity. When The Civil War was first broadcast, his telephone number was publicly listed and he received many phone calls from people who had seen him on television. Foote never unlisted his number, and the volume of calls increased each time the series re-aired. [13] Many Memphis natives were known to pay Foote a visit at his East Parkway residence in Midtown Memphis.

The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1: Fort Sumter to The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1: Fort Sumter to

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York: Random House. 1958. ISBN 0-307-29039-5. As a nearly irrelevant aside, the cover lists the Civil War as ‘one of National Review’s 100 best nonfiction books of the century’, which I am totally down for, but I googled it and the book ranks 97th on the list. That feels vaguely misleading on the part of the publisher. It’s technically true, yes, but you have to admit, it’s a little shady to say. Foote accomplishes a great deal with his portraits. He is not just giving us a picture, but a characterization. You get to know the war’s major players on very intimate terms, and this helps to put their decisions – right and wrong – into a deeper context. The final volume opens with the beginning of the two final, major confrontations of the war: Grant against Lee in Virginia, and Sherman pressing Johnston in north Georgia in 1864. The narrative describes the events and battles from Sherman's March to the Sea to Lincoln's assassination and the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. With funding and filming taking place in the late 1980s, “The Civil War” did reflect the time in which it was made. James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989, and Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, a best-selling novel from 1974 about the Battle of Gettysburg, still exerted obvious influence. Both of these popular histories were focused almost solely on military history – battles, soldiers, and life on the warfront, and they seemingly guided the general focus of both the editing and production of “The Civil War.”

In the end the book (and of course the horrific history it accounts) is as tragic and awful as it gets. Foote campaigned in the 2001 referendum on the Flag of Mississippi, arguing against a proposal which would have replaced the Confederate battle flag with a blue canton with 20 stars. [64] Foote rejected the Confederate flag's association with white supremacy and argued "I’m for the Confederate flag always and forever. Many among the finest people this country has ever produced died in that war. To take it and call it a symbol of evil is a misrepresentation." [65] The Civil War: A Narrative, Yellow Tavern to Cold Harbor (40th Anniversaryed.). Alexandria, VA: Time-Life. 2000. ISBN 0-7835-0110-2. Shelby Foote then binds all these events and facts together in an incredibly engaging narrative that reads like a character-driven novel rather than historical non-fiction. Makes for engrossing reading.

Civil War’: Ken Burns series turns 30 amid Breonna ‘The Civil War’: Ken Burns series turns 30 amid Breonna

as long as Ken Burns’s The Civil War is seen as the definitive telling of the story, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Nathan Bedford Forrest will remain on their pedestals.” C. Stuart Chapman. Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006), pp. xix, 185, 186, 201, 202. Keri Leigh, Merritt. "Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary". Smithsonian . Retrieved October 10, 2019. This is probably the leading complete history of the Civil War, which for me means there is a great opportunity for someone to write something better. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York: Vintage Books. 1986. ISBN 0-394-74623-6.David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 139. A stunning book full of color, life, character and a new atmosphere of the Civil War, and at the same time a narrative of unflagging power. Eloquent proof that an historian should be a writer above all else." —Burke Davis Saint Louis University Library Associates. "Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award". Archived from the original on July 31, 2016 . Retrieved July 25, 2016. The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories: Ten Classic Short Stories and One Novella of the Civil War Foote worked for several weeks on an outline and decided that his plan couldn't be done to Cerf's specifications. He requested that the project be expanded to three volumes of 500,000 to 600,000 words each, and he estimated that the entire project would be done in nine years. [13]