xiangxianga

I liked this one a lot. I'm still figuring out what I think about good ways to teach and learn history, but one of the things I firmly believe in is that primary sources - material (usually written, but can be audio or visual) from the time being studied - are crucial. You have to look at those if you really want to understand whatever it is that you're studying. And this book does just that. She cites the letters from rank and file soldiers to support her thesis, which is that such soldiers believed that slavery was the crux of the conflict between the North and South. If you've ever wondered about the attitudes people of the Civil War era held about race, then you should read this book. It also discusses the general sociocultural differences between the North and South. It's extensively endnoted, which I approve of. (A purportedly historical book which is not properly annotated is nearly useless, in my opinion. It makes it difficult for others to easily verify your sources, and can raise questions about your academic honesty.) It's not as long as it might seem, as the last 125 or so pages are endnotes and the index; however, it's long enough to be a reasonably developed treatment of the subject. The one thing I thought it was really missing was a timeline of important events during the Civil War, and that's a fairly minor omission. Comments about the data system she used when writing the book, mostly for my own interest: "For every soldier whose writings I read, and for whom I could obtain sufficient biographical detail, I created a data sheet that recorded such information as birth date, home occupation, marital status, regiment, rank, battle participation, and experiences such as capture, wounding, or death. These 477 Confederate soldier data sheets and 657 Union soldier data sheets helped place soldiers' words in appropriate social and demographic contest, and also helped ensure that my cross section of soldiers resembled the actual makeup of the enlisted ranks as closely as possible. In addition, I drew on the letters and diaries of hundreds of additional recruits from whom biographical information was too scanty to compile, and on letters written by soldiers to newspapers." Oh, and she deliberately didn't modernize the language in the letters. Which is something else I'm all for.

2022-12-11 15:08