I have a bunch of books that I need to mention and hope to review several of them. I’m starting to get books I did not ask for and cannot promise a review for those!
First up, author Nate Levin sent me a copy of his Carrie Chapman Catt: A Life of Leadership. Catt was a woman’s rights and suffrage advocate in the late 1890s and early 1900s. This is a short presentation and looks to be written so that I might consider assigning it to my high school students. We’ll see!
Osprey Publishing sent me several samples of their “Men-at-Arms” publications, in particular The Confederate Army 1861-65, volumes 5&6, and Trenton and Princeton, 1776-77 Washington Crosses the Delaware. Once again, these might be very handy in my classroom for book projects. I think too often we send students to the computer lab to perform webquests, when they need more instructional focused reading.
McFarland has been very active recently and I have several titles to share, first up is Roy Z. Chamlee, Jr.’s Lincoln’s Assassins: A Complete Account of their Capture, Trial, and Punishment. I have to admit I do not know much about this 2 volume set. I have doubts it will compare to Lincoln’s Assassins: Their Trial and Execution by James L. Swanson and Daniel Weinberg, but I plan and reading it and giving it a chance. I can tell you Swanson’s book is a helluvalot cheaper! This is a reprint in paperback of the hardcover original from 1990.
Gen. Fitz-John Porter was accused of disobedience during the Battle of Second Manasses. A new book covers this controversial event, Fitz-John Porter, Scapegoat of Second Manassas, by Donald R. Jermann. Union commander Major General John Pope blamed the loss on charismatic and popular Major General Fitz-John Porter, whom he charged with disobedience of orders and shameful conduct before the enemy. A court-martial found him guilty. But was Porter really guilty or did he save the country from an even greater disaster? This book addresses the question of Porter’s guilt or innocence, examining the trial and its aftereffects from several perspectives. [From the book.] The book looks well researched and at just shy of 300 pages very readable.
I also have John F. Schmutz, The Battle of the Crater: A Complete History and also Stephen R. Bradley: Letters of a Revolutionary War Patriot and Vermont Senator, (ed. Dorr Bradley Carpenter) both of which I plan on reviewing.
And finally, the one that I will read first, War Memory and Popular Culture: Essays of Remembrance and Commemoration, edited by Michael Keren and Holger H. Herwig .
