Pat
06-02-2009, 09:16 AM
Title of Book: Ordeal by Fire: A Short History of the Civil War
Author (s) name (s): Fletcher Pratt
Date of publication (year): 1977 (Dover Edition)
Publisher: Dover
ISBN: 0-486-29702-0
Number of Pages: 426
Where it can be purchased: most book sellers
Illustrated? Yes, but with maps
Genre of the book: Non-Fiction / History
Rate your book: Highly Recommended
Appropriate Age group for this book: High School and Up
Book Summary: A brief history of the Civil War. Does not spend time on preliminaries to the war but rather begins with Lincoln's inauguration. Focus is on battles, but other relevant events are covered.
Opinion of the Book: Absolutely wonderful overview of the war. Pratt orginally published this book in 1935. He is famous for short histories of various military events, so esteemed is his writing that books are now given a "Fletcher Pratt" award for short military histories.
With brief and bold brush strokes he shows the reader the personalities of various civil war personalities. He includes many people who it is likely the average person has not heard of before: Albert Sidney Johnston (considered at the beginning of the war to be the South's best general) or Clement L. Vallandigham (the original man with out a country).
But firmly in place is a light humor about various events and personalities. Pratt is no respecter of memories and monuments when it comes to the foibles of historic personalities.
Yet also thoughtful in his consideration of why events happened as they did and the motivations of various men or groups of men.
He does spend more time on Northern personalities than those of the South, in part because there were so many more of them, and he waits until the late years of the war to draw his portrait of Robert E. Lee. His orientation to the battles is more from a Northern perspective, although I was hard pressed to call this bias so much as focus (he spends little time on the points of why the war occurred but instead on what happened and why certain actions were successful).
FTC Disclosure: PLEASE NOTE: This is a “For Profit” site. The Library makes commissions on products sold through affiliate and advertiser links. The products reviewed here may or may not have an affiliate link (most don’t), but we want you to be aware that it is a possibility. Whether this affiliation affects the objectivity of the reviews here is debatable. We don’t think it does, but that’s up to you to decide. If you want to know about a specific product, please feel free to ask. For a full list of current affiliates, check out the Affiliate Forum.
Author (s) name (s): Fletcher Pratt
Date of publication (year): 1977 (Dover Edition)
Publisher: Dover
ISBN: 0-486-29702-0
Number of Pages: 426
Where it can be purchased: most book sellers
Illustrated? Yes, but with maps
Genre of the book: Non-Fiction / History
Rate your book: Highly Recommended
Appropriate Age group for this book: High School and Up
Book Summary: A brief history of the Civil War. Does not spend time on preliminaries to the war but rather begins with Lincoln's inauguration. Focus is on battles, but other relevant events are covered.
Opinion of the Book: Absolutely wonderful overview of the war. Pratt orginally published this book in 1935. He is famous for short histories of various military events, so esteemed is his writing that books are now given a "Fletcher Pratt" award for short military histories.
With brief and bold brush strokes he shows the reader the personalities of various civil war personalities. He includes many people who it is likely the average person has not heard of before: Albert Sidney Johnston (considered at the beginning of the war to be the South's best general) or Clement L. Vallandigham (the original man with out a country).
But firmly in place is a light humor about various events and personalities. Pratt is no respecter of memories and monuments when it comes to the foibles of historic personalities.
Yet also thoughtful in his consideration of why events happened as they did and the motivations of various men or groups of men.
He does spend more time on Northern personalities than those of the South, in part because there were so many more of them, and he waits until the late years of the war to draw his portrait of Robert E. Lee. His orientation to the battles is more from a Northern perspective, although I was hard pressed to call this bias so much as focus (he spends little time on the points of why the war occurred but instead on what happened and why certain actions were successful).
FTC Disclosure: PLEASE NOTE: This is a “For Profit” site. The Library makes commissions on products sold through affiliate and advertiser links. The products reviewed here may or may not have an affiliate link (most don’t), but we want you to be aware that it is a possibility. Whether this affiliation affects the objectivity of the reviews here is debatable. We don’t think it does, but that’s up to you to decide. If you want to know about a specific product, please feel free to ask. For a full list of current affiliates, check out the Affiliate Forum.