Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Various Things

One thing from the latest issue of Blue & Gray magazine that caught my eye was the scathing review by Atlanta Campaign historian and former B&G Book Review Editor Stephen Davis of the recent John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory.  It's worth checking out at your local bookstore if you're not a subscriber.

Every once in a while, the Pritzker Military Library author series has a Civil War guest speaker, and last week (10/7) they had Donald Stoker.  I haven't listened to it yet, but other podcasts have made for interesting iPod listening.

There's little doubt that there are few things Civil War book editors love to send to the chopping block more than reams of data and numerical analysis. No entity but a university press, and rarely at that, would even consider involvement with anything like this, and UNC Press certainly deserves credit for publishing next spring Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee, the quantitative companion to Joseph Glatthaar's acclaimed General Lee's Army.

4 comments:

  1. I just read the review. Yikes!

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  2. Hello Drew

    I bought the book, but haven't read it yet. Not making any excuses, but I'm sure Hood is a difficult subject. I did talk to a very well known author at a symposium recently who read the book also. His comments weren't scathing, but he didn't endorse the book either.

    My question is why would U.T. Press use this book as there first book length volume in their new series if it wasn't groundbreaking?

    Really looking forward to this series from them. The two essay books are wonderful.

    I'll be sure to look at the review and watch for others.

    Don

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  3. Don,
    It certainly does sound like an unfortunate choice. I don't have any news about what's up next in series.

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  4. It would be good if Stephen Davis wrote his own biography of Hood. He is very impassioned about the subject from my readings of Davis over the years and Hood truly needs a new strong, comprehensive work that does justice to his Eastern Theater, Western Theater, and Post War career.

    No biography on Hood has correctly balanced his career with the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee.

    For example, it would be interesting to read a detailed, clear account of his actions at Chickamauga and his serious wounding there and what effect all of it had on Hood and the battle.

    Chris

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