Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War

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Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War Pub. Date: 12/28/1997 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War Pub. Date: 4/28/1996 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (Cassette - Unabridged, 6 Cassettes) Pub. Date: 4/29/1997 Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc.

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Overview

James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." Now, in Drawn With the Sword, McPherson offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on some of the most enduring questions of the Civil War, written in the masterful prose that has become his trademark.

Filled with fresh interpretations, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Drawn With the Sword explores such questions as why the North won and why the South lost (emphasizing the role of contingency in the Northern victory), whether Southern or Northern aggression began the war, and who really freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or the slaves themselves. McPherson offers memorable portraits of the great leaders who people the landscape of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant, struggling to write his memoirs with the same courage and determination that marked his successes on the battlefield; Robert E. Lee, a brilliant general and a true gentleman, yet still a product of his time and place; and Abraham Lincoln, the leader and orator whose mythical figure still looms large over our cultural landscape. And McPherson discusses often-ignored issues such as the development of the Civil War into a modern "total war" against both soldiers and civilians, and the international impact of the American Civil War in advancing the cause of republicanism and democracy in countries from Brazil and Cuba to France and England. Of special interest is the final essay, entitled "What's the Matter With History?", a trenchant critique of the field of history today, which McPherson describes here as "more and more about less and less." He writes that professional historians have abandoned narrative history written for the greater audience of educated general readers in favor of impenetrable tomes on minor historical details which serve only to edify other academics, thus leaving the historical education of the general public to films and television programs such as Glory and Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War.

Each essay in Drawn With the Sword reveals McPherson's own profound knowledge of the Civil War and of the controversies among historians, presenting all sides in clear and lucid prose and concluding with his own measured and eloquent opinions. Readers will rejoice that McPherson has once again proven by example that history can be both accurate and interesting, informative and well-written. Mark Twain wrote that the Civil War "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In Drawn With the Sword, McPherson gracefully and brilliantly illuminates this momentous conflict.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

McPherson's scholarly breadth and intellectual depth place him in the front rank of Civil War historians. All but one of the 15 pieces in this anthology have appeared elsewhere, but in a spectrum of publications so wide that their appearance between one set of covers is especially welcome. They cover four themes: the war's origins, its social consequences, the reasons for its outcome and Abraham Lincoln's central role. Topics range from an analysis of Uncle Tom's Cabin to an argument that the Confederacy almost won. The essays are, however, connected by McPherson's conviction that the Civil War's origins and outcome were in no way predetermined: the campaigns, battles and elections that determined the war's course were shaped by specific contingencies. The final piece, provocatively dissecting the failure of contemporary academic historians to reach general audiences, is by itself worth the price of a book that belongs in all Civil War collections. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Historian McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom, LJ 3/1/88) has compiled a series of thoughtful essays on some of the most thought-provoking questions of the Civil War. All of the essays were published earlier but have been updated and revised for this compilation. The topics deal with such subjects as the origins of the Civil War, the slavery question in both North and South, why the North won the war and why the South lost, President Abraham Lincoln, and the change in historical writing. In these essays the author has proven that history can be accurate, informative, and interesting. For informed readers.-W. Walter Wicker, Louisiana Tech Univ., Ruston

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NY Times Book Review

"Essays that go right to the heart of the meaning of the war and Abraham Lincoln's role in it....McPherson deftly and convincingly sketches out how Lincoln's vision and leadership made the necessary revolution possible." -- The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780195117967
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date: 12/28/1997
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 497,079
Product dimensions: 7.80 (w) x 5.30 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History at Princeton University where he has taught since 1962. The author of ten books on the Civil War era of American History, he won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom.

1. Hometown:
  
  Princeton, New Jersey
1. Date of Birth:
  
  October 11, 1936
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Valley City, North Dakota
1. Education:
  
  B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN) 1958; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, 1963

1	Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question	3
2	Tom on the Cross	24
3	The War of Southern Aggression	37
4	The War that Never Goes Away	55
5	From Limited to Total War, 1861-1865	66
6	Race and Class in the Crucible of War	87
7	The Glory Story	99
8	Why Did the Confederacy Lose?	113
9	How the Confederacy Almost Won	137
10	Lee Dissected	151
11	Grant's Final Victory	159
12	A New Birth of Freedom	177
13	Who Freed the Slaves?	192
14	"The Whole Family of Man": Lincoln and the Last Best Hope Abroad	208
15	What's the Matter with History?	231
	Index	254

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