The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom is both a rich visual chronicle and the most acclaimed account of the most important conflict in our nation's history. It features:
*More than 700 illustrations, including a hundred and fifty in full color, ranging from rare contemporary photographs and period cartoons to etchings, woodcuts, and paintingsﾽ
* 24 full-color maps depicting the major battles of the war plus key economic and political developmentsﾽ
* Extensive captions (some 35,000 words in all), many of which add new information and interpretations that significantly enhance the original textﾽ
* A streamlined version of the finest one-volume history of the Civil War in print, both a New York Times bestseller and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History and a New York Times bestseller, Battle Cry of Freedom has been acclaimed as the finest one-volume history of the American Civil War ever published. James McPherson's epic narrative captures the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. This illustrated edition adds a rich new dimension to the acclaimed text with more than seven hundred pictures chosen by the author -- many rarely or never before published, and over one hundred and fifty in full color. James McPherson has supplied extensive original commentary for each illustration, including new information unavailable in the original edition. Twenty-four new maps in full color have been prepared specially for this volume.
Battle Cry of Freedom matches stirring drama with analytical insight, presenting the critical episodes of the era in vivid detail against the backdrop of economic and social changes that hastened war as well as those that followed in its aftermath. McPherson traces the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War -- the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and then moves into a panoramic chronicle of the war itself. The bloody struggles at Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and many other battlefields are grippingly retold; we read of the fall of Richmond and, in a truly moving passage, of the surrender of Lee's army. McPherson brilliantly illuminates the genius of Abraham Lincoln as both a wartime commander and the political leader of the Union, and he crisply sketches portraits of the main participants, from Jackson and Lee to Grant and Sherman.
Since its first publication, Battle Cry of Freedom has helped shape our understanding of such matters as the origins of the war; the formation of the Republican Party; internal dissent and antiwar opposition in North and South; and the fateful contingencies that determined the course of the conflict. It offers a coherent understanding of the vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, an era that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty. Both readers who already admire it as a classic, and those who have not encountered it before, will treasure this magnificent new edition.
FROM THE CRITICS
Philadelphia Inquirer
Immediately takes its place as the best one-volume history of the coming of the American Civil War . . .
New York Times Review
The best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across . . . This is historical writing of the highest order.
Washington Post Book World
The Finest single volume on the war and its background.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Deftly coordinated, gracefully composed, charitably argued and suspensefully paid out, . . . as narrative history it is surpassing.
Library Journal
In this impressive book, famed Civil War historian McPherson revises his Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom, reducing the text by one-fifth in order to add a stunning array of over 700 illustrations from the Civil War era-photographs, cartoons, lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, and paintings-that give new life to an already vivid, engrossing history. McPherson's text is a condensation rather than a reconsideration of his earlier work, but his original arguments stand up well even in the face of new scholarship on war, politics, and ideology because in the original he had anticipated much of that scholarship. Here, real value is added not only by the illustrations, which are neatly woven into the narrative, but also by the copious captions (which add up to some 35,000 words), which introduce new material and expand on subjects sometimes lightly touched in the original. Only the lack of a modern bibliographical essay mars McPherson's otherwise monumental achievement. One can smell the sweat and sulfur from McPherson's riveting narrative and can see the dangerous age as those who lived in it. Essential.-Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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