Customer Reviews

Trial by Fire: A People's History of the Civil War and Reconstruction Period (People's History of the USA)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the finest work of history I have read, thoroughly researched and brilliant. It cuts directly to the meaning of the United States and brightly illuminates today's problems and their causes without making those points directly. Mr. Page is thoughtful, balanced and even-handed throughout. Though the book is long, it is a tense and exciting read. He knows how to tell a story, and there is none more compelling than the story of our nation in its peril. This series is so well-respected that it is surprising to see negative reviews on this site. Read this book for yourself, and you'll feel its excellence on every page.

Page Simith's history is unparalleled anywhere. This history should be required reading in schools everywhere, in place of the boring, lifeless textbooks we were forced to read as children. If minor and pointless minutiae can be refuted, the big picture cannot. This is not "revisionist" history, it is told primarily through contemporary diaries and newspaper accounts, and assembled into a riveting narrative by a master historian. The heroes and villains of this frenzied, uncompromising, brutal and ultimately disastrous period are allowed to emerge on their own, not as fantasies of a partisan agenda. This great country can learn much from the retelling of this painful episode in our history, on our collective journey to become the great people we think we are.

Simply put, this book is not worth reading. The author writes in EXTREMELY vague generalizations, thereby jumping to many untrue conclusions about numerous things. And, when he is done writing about his view of "Southern Culture", he goes on to show a very poor understanding of the actual war. His commentaries on the generals alone was enough to make me stick out my tongue and put the book down in disgust. Furthermore, he cites ABSOLUTELY NO sources, so we, the readers have no way of knowing if he made everything up! I consider myself quite a Civil War Buff/Reader, and this is by FAR the WORST book on the Civil War I have ever had the displeasure to read!

I second Mr. Sanchez, although with somewhat less disgust. I am astounded by Mr. Smith's lack of understanding of the military aspects of his subject. For example, he continuously refers to the senior Federal general as the "Chief of Staff", a position not introduced into the US Army until the 20th Century. Indeed, one of the great shortcomings of the Union military establishment was the lack of a Chief of Staff with the unifying powers of that position over the quasi-independent Departments and their feudal baron-like Chiefs.

Mr. Sanchez has noted the absence of references, which I can only ascribe to Mr. Smith's lack of serious scholarly intent. He clearly takes the view that this work is, and ought to be, a vehicle for his own revisionist political agenda. That agenda is made abundently clear by his heavy handed approach in describing the decadent "Gone with the Wind" Southern life-style which, although few enjoyed, all were culpable.

"Lincoln", by Gore Vidal is better history as a work of fiction than "Trail by Fire".