Customer Reviews
Access to history does it again - By: Houston, 15 Aug 2008 
This series of books is great & this one is among the best that I've read - it is bigger & contains more detail than many of the others, encompassing the content from what were previously two civil war titles. The text is easy to read & clear & the book is packed with character profiles, maps, photos, cartoons & diagrams. 'Call-out boxes' & chapter questions encourage active rather than passive reading & I believe this has helped me understand & remember more of the details than might otherwise be the case.
A range of issues are covered, including: the home front, diplomacy, social conditions, economic differences between the north & south, the role of western expansion & the Mexican war, slavery and, of course, the military aspects of the conflict. The author takes, what I think is the traditionalist, position that slavery was hugely influential as a cause of the war.
If I were required to offer a criticism, it would be that the military history (doctrine, tactics, training, weapons etc) is not given as much emphasis as I would have expected. Overall, I highly recommended this book as an introduction to the US civil war.
A mine of information; good, but not great. - By: Mr. J. Hudson, 21 Jan 2007 Now children, are you sitting comfortably; then I'll begin. The American Civil War was fought between two groups of people over the side effects of Slavery. The odd thing is that neither side actually liked black Americans. This book will provide a well balanced insight into the extremely complex social, economic & political reasons behind the American Civil War. It is so complex that I am coming to the conclusion that even historians don't understand it. History is more than facts; it is about people & what makes them tick. It seems bizarre that two groups of people will expend thousands of lives on a war about the effects of Slavery rather than the slaves themselves; remember it was a hundred years after the Civil War before black Americans were grudgingly given civil rights. The book tries to cover too many topics & therefore for those wanting a deeper insight into many of the complex questions may need to visit Wikipedia for more detail.
