For teachers reluctant to assign a single text because students protest the anodyne feel of textbooks, the strength of Varon's argument makes this book a welcome choice....Her narrative carries the story with remarkable effectiveness and concision. She captures the contingency of battles, the unpredictability of commanders, and the fickleness of public opinion. As befits a history of the Civil War, military history plays a key role. Her emphasis on campaign-level movement, with occasional detours through the tactics of major encounters, ensures that readers understand the outcomes.
Elizabeth R. Varon is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History and associate director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the Civil War era and 19th-century South, Varon is the author of We Mean to be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia; Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy, Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859, and Appomattox: Victory, Defeat and Freedom at the End of the Civil War.